RandBall: The Jets officially broke up with Aaron Rodgers. Let’s not do this again, Vikings.

The Jets made it official Thursday that they are moving on from Aaron Rodgers in 2025.

I know what you are thinking, Vikings fans, because I’m thinking it as well.

This is history repeating itself, a grotesque yet beautiful destiny hurtling like an asteroid toward the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

Brett Favre built a Hall of Fame career in Green Bay; things got messy in the end; he went to the Jets in a move that didn’t work out for either side; and then he pivoted to the Vikings in the ultimate revenge plot.

Rodgers built a Hall of Fame career in Green Bay; things got messy in the end; he went to the Jets in a move that didn’t work out for either side; and ... stop.

I have been wondering and worrying about this moment for years, sometimes treating it as an absurd (or even welcome) inevitability that Rodgers would spend his final NFL days with the Vikings and other times dismissing it as impossible.

Now that it’s here, I feel strangely ambivalent but mostly firm in this: Making a move for Rodgers just doesn’t make sense for the Vikings.

They are on an ascending arc. I’ve talked on the Daily Delivery podcast and written that they should eschew shortcuts.

Here is the logic and how this situation in 2025 is different from the one the Vikings encountered in 2009 when they eventually signed Favre:

Even given all that, if this exact scenario were playing out a year ago when McCarthy was a rookie and before Darnold had signed, bringing in Rodgers (especially if he were willing to play on a discounted deal) might have been tempting.

As it is now? It doesn’t make sense.

I’m glad we talked that through, as much for me as for you.