What had to happen finally happened.
After months of negotiations and debates over who really has the leverage, the Jets on Monday agreed to acquire superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The Packers traded Rodgers, the No. 15 pick in this year’s draft and a 2023 fifth-round pick (No. 170) to the Jets in exchange for the No. 13 pick in this year’s draft, a 2023 second-round pick (No. 42), a 2023 sixth-round pick (No. 207) and a conditional 2024 second-round pick.
The conditional pick becomes a first-rounder next year if Rodgers plays 65 percent or more of the snaps this season.
As with any blockbuster deal — especially a trade saga with as many twists and turns as this one — there will be winners and losers, even if, as The Post’s Brian Costello put it, we won’t know for at least a year who won the trade itself.
Let’s take a look:
Winners
Jets fans: Nearly 50 years since they had their last bona fide franchise quarterback in Joe Namath — whose iconic No. 12 will remain out of circulation as Rodgers switches to No. 8 — Jets fans finally have an undeniably top-end signal caller to root for, albeit a 39-year-old in decline. Along with a promising young core, it provides Jets fans with the most hope and anticipation entering a season perhaps in decades.
Jets receivers: Garrett Wilson, Corey Davis, Denzel Mims and the newly acquired Allen Lazard and Mecole Hardman now will have a future Hall of Famer throwing them passes. After dealing with the offense’s ineptitude under Zach Wilson — “this s–t’s sorry,” Wilson memorably said after a three-point outing in New England — there shouldn’t be any complaints about the quality of the quarterback. Safe to say there was excitement when the trade went down.
Zach Wilson: This one could go both ways. Wilson technically loses his job, and it must be difficult to watch his teammates celebrate the move around him. But there was no chance Wilson was going to be the Jets’ starter this season — team brass pretty much had said as much. So Wilson gets to sit behind and learn from a legend he grew up admiring. And Rodgers, who turns 40 in December and annually flirts with retirement, is not a long-term option as Derek Carr or Jimmy Garrappolo would have been. Rodgers is for right now. One season, two max. Wilson can learn from Rodgers and still have a chance to later deliver to the Jets what they envisioned when drafting him with the No. 2 overall pick.
Jordan Love: Entering his fourth season after the Packers moved up to select him with the No. 26 overall pick in the 2020 draft, Love likely finally gets his chance to take over as the Packers’ starting quarterback. He’s appeared in 10 games and started just one through three seasons, and remains one of the NFL’s greatest mysteries.
Robert Saleh: Although Woody Johnson wouldn’t go on record saying it, it’s likely Saleh needs to make a run this season to keep his job. He was handicapped last season by woeful quarterback production with an otherwise talented, playoff-caliber roster. But with the trade, there’s no more excuses: Saleh has to win, now.
Nathaniel Hackett: The Jets’ new offensive coordinator reunites with his former quarterback after the two enjoyed a ton of success together with the Packers.
Media: Rodgers is one of the biggest personalities in sports (for better and often for worse). The Jets are sure to be featured in a ton of primetime TV games, and reporters will have plenty of material to work with.
Losers
AFC East opponents/cornerbacks: The Jets instantly move up a notch in the AFC, and figure to be competitive to win the division. AFC East defenses have gotten used to woeful quarterback play when facing the Jets. That’s not true anymore.
Joe Douglas: Yes, he got his guy. But the Jets general manager seemingly caved in giving up more to acquire Rodgers than most thought it would take, particularly as the saga dragged on. The 2024 conditional pick, which will likely become a first-rounder barring injury, along with a second-rounder and a first-round pick swap this year suggests the Packers held the leverage after all. Douglas painted himself into a corner knowing he couldn’t go into next season with Zach Wilson as the starter then watched Carr and Garroppolo sign in free agency and leave Rodgers as his only viable option. At the end of the day, Douglas gave up a haul for a rental QB coming off a down year, and needs to approach — win? — a Super Bowl to justify the move. If it doesn’t work out, he’s stuck with significantly less draft capital, if he even has a job. He better hope it works.
Lambeau Leaps: Though nobody really knows what Love is capable of, it’s hard to believe it won’t be a steep drop-off from Rodgers at the frozen tundra. Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs had strong rookie seasons, but now have to deal with a first-time starting quarterback.
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Rangers-Devils getting slippery
“The crowd is silent as you’ll ever hear in here,” ESPN announcer Sean McDonough observed.
That was with three minutes remaining in a one-goal game, in the middle of a playoff series against a local rival, at a capacity-crowd Madison Square Garden. Yeesh.
It was kinda like that old tweet (“why watch overtime playoff hockey when you can simply snort cocaine and ride a motorcycle out of a helicopter”), only the opposite.
The vibes, by the end of the Rangers’ 3-1 Game 4 loss to the Devils that evened their first-round showdown at two games apiece, seemed more mid-January than late April.
“We didn’t show up,” Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant fumed afterward. “We didn’t play hard enough. We didn’t compete hard enough. All we did was yap at the linesmen for getting thrown out of the faceoffs.”
The Rangers’ top six, so dominant in Games 1 and 2, was held to one early-third-period goal by Vincent Trocheck. A “frustrated” Mika Zibanejad confided in The Post’s Larry Brooks after another scoreless outing.
Now the series sails back across the Hudson to the Prudential Center for Thursday’s Game 5, and the Devils have the wind at their backs.
Of our not-since-1994 postseason five-fer, the Nets are out, the Islanders may join them Tuesday night; the Devils appeared to be next, but with two more quiet showings like Monday’s, it will be the Rangers instead.
— Jonathan Lehman
Tall order for the NFL Draft?
Draft the player and the body of work, not the scales.
Bryce Young should be the easy choice to go No. 1 to the Panthers in the NFL Draft on Thursday night. He’s a special talent. He’s clearly the best quarterback and ranks first on The Post’s list of top 100 prospects in the draft. He has a better résumé than his counterparts. That’s all been true for more than a year.
But that doesn’t stop the naysaying and last-minute second-guessing surrounding Young — all because of a few measurements made in street clothes.
Young measured at 5-foot-10 ⅛ and 204 pounds at the NFL Combine last month. All of a sudden, everything he did on the football field took a back seat. A sample:
“If I’m a GM, I’m scared to death of drafting him,” said ESPN’s longtime draft analyst Todd McShay.
Young “better walk on water” to overcome his lack of size, according to Super Bowl-winning coach Bill Parcells.
Young’s size is a deal-breaker and “absolutely an issue,” in the estimation of Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd.
The list goes on. Those concerns are woefully misplaced.
Young possesses a game that perfectly translates to the NFL. He’s an elite passer with great footwork and the ability to scramble. He has a top-tier football IQ and anticipation, which was put on display when he reportedly scored a 98, the highest score among quarterback prospects, on the increasingly popular S2 cognition test.
Young played with NFL-caliber offensive linemen at Alabama and threw over NFL-sized defensive linemen who were his opponents in the SEC.
And he’s not a dual-threat quarterback like fellow sub-6-foot QBs Kyler Murray, Johnny Manziel and Michael Vick, whose size may have made them more vulnerable to injury.
Should we really ignore all of that because of a few inches?
“The Bryce Youngs don’t come around very often where you get somebody that doesn’t fit all the specs but is supremely talented,” NFL Network’s lead draft analyst and former NFL scout Daniel Jeremiah said recently on a conference call. “To me I just thought he has the best tape of anybody in this class. I thought it was clear-cut. Just with everything he does on schedule, off schedule, accuracy, poise, ball placement, play-making ability, being great in those big clutch moments late in games, managing games. All that stuff is off the charts.
“If it was like a blind taste test, if you just read the notes on Bryce Young and didn’t look at how big he was and you read your notes on Joe Burrow [who measured at six-foot-3 4/8 and 221 pounds at the combine before being drafted No. 1 by the Bengals], they would read almost identical.”
The vast majority of the time, drafting players based on their size and physical measurables over their bodies of work has failed, particularly at quarterback (this year’s case study: Florida’s Anthony Richardson).
Flatly, the only reason not to select Young is his size. And that would be silly.
How are those trades going?
Blockbuster trade mistakes are littered across the NBA playoffs.
And they’re helping to validate Leon Rose’s cautiousness with the Knicks.
Before the season, the Timberwolves sent a colossal package to the Jazz to acquire Rudy Gobert. The Timberwolves regressed by four games and one spot in the standings, Gobert was suspended for a play-in game after punching teammate Kyle Anderson and now they face first-round playoff elimination in Tuesday night’s Game 5 against the Nuggets (9 p.m., NBA TV).
The Hawks sent a pile of draft picks to acquire one-time Knicks target Dejounte Murray. The Hawks won two fewer games in the regular season, and are also facing elimination Tuesday night in Game 5 against the Celtics (7:30 p.m., TNT). But Murray won’t be available: He was suspended for berating and bumping into a referee during Game 4.
Last but certainly not least there’s Donovan Mitchell, who elevated the Cavaliers to fourth place in the East, but has faltered in the playoffs as the Knicks have seized a 3-1 lead in their first-round series.
(Lauri Markkanen, one of the players the Jazz obtained from the Cavs over the Knicks’ Mitchell trade offer, was named the NBA’s Most Improved Player on Monday evening.)
Many wanted the Knicks to move more aggressively to acquire a star — Mitchell and Murray, in particular — last offseason. Rose took a more cautious approach, holding onto the team’s draft assets and young pieces while banking on a boost from free agent Jalen Brunson.
Now Rose’s side is on the cusp of advancing further than any of those teams that did complete a big trade.
That said, the end goal isn’t parties on Seventh Avenue after first-round wins. It’s a ticker-tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes.
Whether the Knicks have the roster for that, or still need the right star to take them to that level, remains to be seen.
Is this boxing’s new main event?
Gervonta Davis believes he left the ring with more than just a victory following his Saturday night megafight against Ryan Garcia.
Davis is confident he’s now the face of boxing.
It’s hard to argue against him.
Davis, 28, improved to 29-0 with 27 knockouts after stopping the 24-year-old Garcia with a pulverizing liver shot in the seventh round. Davis has emerged in recent years as one of the top attractions in the entire sport with huge crowds and massive pay-per-view numbers.
“I feel as though I need this fight to be the face of boxing,” Davis told Sports+ heading into Saturday’s fight. “You got a young, fresh guy like Ryan that hasn’t lost or hasn’t been in no wars in an actual fight. I think it’s gonna be tough, and I feel as though, yeah, the winner definitely is the face of boxing.”
Canelo Alvarez and Tyson Fury have held that distinction in recent years, but both champions are in the latter parts of their career. Fury has retired multiple times before reversing course.
Davis is in the prime of his career and at the height of his powers.
No one can match his following. Davis has 5.4 million Instagram followers; Devin Haney, the undisputed champion of their lightweight division, has 2.2 million. Jermell Charlo, an undisputed champion at junior middleweight, lacks Davis’ star power. Others atop the pound-for-pound rankings — Oleksandr Usyk, Artur Beterbiev, Dmitry Bivol, Errol Spence and Terence Crawford — aren’t household names.
Davis’ close ties within the hip-hop community have brought him pop culture recognition and earned him fans who otherwise don’t follow boxing. Against Garcia, Davis was walked to the ring by rapper Chief Keef.
His fight against Garcia also gave boxing fans what they’ve been starving for in recent years — a true megafight between undefeated top talents in their primes. Those types of fights regularly fall through — see: Spence-Crawford and Fury-Usyk — much to the dismay of boxing fans.
As such, Davis delivered the most-anticipated fight of the year. It will likely be the most lucrative and most-viewed fight of the year as well.
“Hopefully, this fight will lead to more fighters to fight each other now and not later,” Davis said.
Next, Davis could fight the winner of Haney’s title defense next month against Vasiliy Lomachenko, which would provide Davis a chance to add a championship to his résumé.
Or he could fight undefeated Newark’s Shakur Stevenson, one of the fastest-rising and most acclaimed fighters in all of boxing.
Both would be among the biggest fights in recent memory.
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