The Aaron Rodgers effect: Jets set for roaring return to prime time on 2023 NFL schedule

The New York Jets have not appeared on “Sunday Night Football” since a loss to the New England Patriots on Nov. 13, 2011 – nine months after Aaron Rodgers, the franchise's new quarterback, led the Green Bay Packers to a Super Bowl 45 victory.

Ahead of Thursday night's release of the 2023 NFL regular-season schedule – all 272 games – it's a virtual lock that the trend will end this year. Thanks to last month's trade for Rodgers, the Jets, with a roster primed to end a league-worst 12-year postseason drought, now have consistency at quarterback that the franchise lacked for more than a decade.

“I think it’s a safe bet,” NFL vice president of broadcast planning Mike North told USA TODAY Sports about the Jets' Sunday night absence potentially coming to an end. 

Not all of the Jets' prime-time matchups will be on Sunday nights, but Gang Green will have several opportunities to play in featured windows. The maximum number of prime-time games allowed for a team is six, with the option of a seventh contest being flexed.

“I think the league would have no hesitation putting them in the maximum number of prime-time games,” North said.

NFL DRAFT HUB: Latest NFL Draft mock drafts, news, live picks, grades and analysis.

Already, the Jets have been granted the spotlight in the upcoming campaign. They will host the Miami Dolphins at MetLife Stadium on Nov. 24 in the inaugural Black Friday game on Amazon’s Prime Video.

Agent Leigh Steinberg, whose clients include Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, expects the league's broadcast partners to play up both New York teams, with the Giants coming off their first postseason appearance in six seasons.

“You’re going to get (big) ratings out of that massive New York market,” Steinberg told USA TODAY Sports. “And now they have both teams that have shown national interest, so keep your eye on how many (prime-time) games they schedule with the New York teams.

“It’s still a star system, and people want to see franchise quarterbacks … they want to see Mahomes and Lamar Jackson and Aaron Rodgers and Justin Herbert and Joe Burrow,” Steinberg added.   

For the first time since trading for Brett Favre in 2008, the Jets have a quarterback in that group. Their schedule will reflect that.

WANNA BET?7 Best Online Sportsbooks and Sports Betting Sites in USA 2023

Jets' spotlight mirrors Tom Brady's chapter with Bucs

Call it the “Brady Blueprint.”

For the NFL's schedule-makers and the league's broadcast partners, the Rodgers situation wasn’t completely unfamiliar. A franchise icon ticketed for a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection divorced his longtime organization in hopes of changing the fortunes of an organization that plays in a different conference.

“Eerily similar to the Tom Brady situation from (three) years ago,” North said.

One key difference is that Brady signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a franchise that had seldom commanded consistent national attention. The Jets, by virtue of the New York market and the team's history, carry a different cachet.

Mike Mulvihill, FOX Sports executive vice president, head of strategy and analytics, said the trade had “at least” as much of an impact on the upcoming schedule as Brady’s move to the Buccaneers did in 2020.

“It definitely shakes things up, but shakes things up in a good way,” Mulvihill told USA TODAY Sports.

In 2022, the NFL accounted for 82 of the year's top 100 telecasts, according to Nielsen ratings data compiled by Sportico. Of the top 27 broadcasts, Rodgers and the Packers appeared five times.

Typically, Mulvihill said, FOX has one in-person meeting with the NFL following the Super Bowl to discuss the next season’s schedule. But at March's annual league meeting in Arizona, the two sides gathered again – the first time Mulvihill could recall having a second in-person meeting with the league to specifically talk about the implications of one player switching teams.

“It’s a big deal,” Mulvihill said.

How drawn-out Aaron Rodgers trade affected plan for NFL schedule

With three consecutive offseasons of uncertainty surrounding Rodgers' future, a trade involving him was less of a surprise than Brady’s decision to leave the Patriots and sign with the Buccaneers.

“It was all systems stop, turn off the computers for a couple of days, and let’s talk about this and let’s reevaluate,” North recalled.

When Rodgers in March divulged his intentions to play for New York, the league started down the path of exploring what a Jets schedule could look like, North said. That the trade – stalled for more than a month – was finally completed prior to the draft was beneficial.

Prior to that point, a smidge of anxiety remained planted in the mind of Onnie Bose, the NFL’s vice president of broadcasting.

“What if this doesn’t get done? Can we confidently put this schedule out with the amount of Jets games in big windows that you’re going to see?” Bose said.

The Friday night of the three-day draft was the soft internal deadline, according to Bose. It ended up being moot.

In 2019, the year before Brady’s arrival, the Buccaneers played one game in prime time – a Thursday night contest in Week 2. They had four the next year. Similarly, the Jets played one “TNF” game in 2022, their lone exposure to prime time as mandated by league rules at the time.

Acquiring a future Hall of Famer at the most important position in professional sports will change those fortunes.

And in the process, flip the NFL schedule on its head.  

“A little bit of extra work,” Mulvihill said, “but definitely worthwhile.”

Follow Chris Bumbaca on Twitter @BOOMbaca.