Beyond the dust of Liverpool’s dock road and the huge lorries rolling in and out of the city’s port, the glass panels of Everton’s new home at the Bramley-Moore Dock sparkle impressively, radiating ambition.

The site, expected to open next year, is a feat of engineering considering the narrow dimensions of the fresh land below it, where old waters have been drained to create a 52,888-capacity arena that has been earmarked to host matches at the 2028 European Championship.

The Everton Stadium, as it is currently known, has been nearly 30 years in the making and nothing about its construction has been straightforward. There were three other proposed sites — including one outside Liverpool’s city boundaries, in Kirkby — which never materialised; a sponsorship deal collapsing due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; three owners, Peter Johnson, Bill Kenwright and Farhad Moshiri, departing; and several flirtations with relegation. 

Ultimately, Dan Friedkin, a Texan-based billionaire, will have the honour of being in post when it is inaugurated after his group’s long-awaited takeover was completed on Thursday.

It has been a momentous week for Everton, and for the region as a whole. The Friedkin Group’s takeover means both of Merseyside’s Premier League clubs are now controlled by Americans. Meanwhile, a third, League Two side Tranmere Rovers, could join them if the English Football League (EFL) ratifies a takeover by a consortium led by Donald Trump’s former lawyer Joe Tacopina.

In football terms, Liverpool is on the verge of becoming the USA’s 51st state — the name of the 2001 movie starring Samuel L Jackson and Robert Carlyle, which was filmed in the city and used Anfield, the home of Liverpool FC, as a backdrop.

It is a huge cultural shift from the days — back when that film was released — when Liverpool and Everton had local owners and an American takeover of the city’s most celebrated sporting organisations seemed unthinkable. 

And for all the excitement that Everton and Tranmere’s takeovers have generated, there remains an underlying caution — born of years of fear and frustration over the direction their clubs have taken — over what U.S. ownership will mean.

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Everton is a club of contrasts. 

Much of their mainly local support comes from some of the United Kingdom’s most economically challenged districts in the north end of Liverpool, near Walton where Goodison Park is located, and the ‘People’s Club’ — as former manager David Moyes christened them — has long taken pride in not being connected to big business, particularly in comparison to their near-neighbours Liverpool.

“One Evertonian is worth twenty Liverpudlians,” said former local captain Brian Labone, who led the team he supported as a boy in the 1960s.

Yet it hasn’t always been this way. At that time, it was Everton — not Liverpool — who were the city’s big spenders under their chairman John Moores, the founder of Littlewoods Pools. Then, their nickname was the ‘Mersey Millionaires’ and the club’s modus operandi was unapologetically ruthless: one manager, Johnny Carey, was sacked in the back of a taxi.

Moores would detail several innovations that would grow the sport, making it more attractive to business. They included the creation of a European Super League (sound familiar?), the rise of television, as well as the removal of the maximum wage, leaving a free market in which the best players would go to the richest clubs.

When Liverpool started to dominate English football and Goodison Park experienced a dip in gates, Moores tried to raise more cash. One of his solutions was to bring corporate hospitality to Goodison, as well as more advertising boards around the pitch but the move experienced pushback.

“Fans didn’t like it,” says Gavin Buckland, who recently published a book entitled The End, which looks at some of the longer-term causes of Everton’s struggles. “They felt the boards intruded on their match day routine — an in-your-face commercialism.”

Attitudes haven’t changed much since, in part because successive Everton owners haven’t been able to expand Goodison which is hemmed into Walton’s warren of terraced streets. Under Kenwright, Everton played on that reputation of the plucky underdog punching above its weight; it was only when Moshiri, a Monaco-based British-Iranian steel magnate, arrived as co-owner in 2016 that the waters were muddied. 

Goodison Park – with Anfield visible at the top of the picture – is sandwiched into terraced streets (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Under Moshiri, Everton became two clubs in one. Like Kenwright, Moshiri operated from London but unlike the theatre impresario, he had no natural connection with Merseyside. While Moshiri aimed for the stars, spending big on players and managers, Kenwright — who remained chairman and still had influence until his death last year — had a more corner-shop mentality. There was a lack of clarity over decision-making.

Enter Friedkin. Perversely, Everton’s fallen state is a major reason they represent such an attractive proposition to the San Diego-born businessman, who identified them as one of, if not the last, purchasable English football club where there is room for significant growth.

On Merseyside, there is some concern about what this might mean: Americans have tended to develop dubious reputations as owners of English football clubs due to their appetite for driving non-football revenues and seeing their investments as content providers. 

Will the new stadium, for example, become a shopping mall experience, complete with hiked-up ticket prices? Buckland speaks of a “cliff edge”, where Everton are moving into a new home, necessitating new routines for matchgoing fans, while a new foreign owner with a reputation for keeping his distance gets his feet under the table. For some, all of this at once might be too much.

Given that Friedkin cannot claim to have played a leading role in the stadium move, he is likely to be judged quickly on the team that he delivers. Any new revenue-driving schemes will only float if fortunes improve on the pitch, otherwise his priorities will be questioned.

For proof, simply look across Stanley Park. In 2016, thousands of Liverpool fans walked out of Anfield in the 77th minute of a Premier League game against Sunderland after FSG announced that some ticket prices in the stadium’s new Main Stand would be priced at £77. 

Liverpool had won just one trophy in six years of FSG ownership at that point and local fans, especially, felt like their loyalty was being exploited, given the organisation’s policy of investing its own money in infrastructure but not the team. The protest led to an embarrassing climbdown.

Liverpool was once described by the Guardian newspaper as the “Bermuda Triangle of capitalism”. It has since been framed absolutely as a left-wing city even though voting patterns suggest it should be described as a dissenting one. Its football supporters, whether blue or red, tend to confront perceived injustices, especially if it involves outsiders making money at the expense of locals, and even more so if they are not delivering on the pitch.

Liverpool have retained their working-class feel (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

FSG were only able to buy Liverpool at a knockdown price, which its former American owner Tom Hicks described as an “epic swindle”, due to the response of the supporters who unionised themselves in an attempt to drive both Hicks and his partner George Gillett out following a series of broken promises, as the club veered dangerously towards deep financial problems from 2008.

“The missteps of Hicks and Gillett put power in the hands of the fans,” reminds Gareth Roberts from Spirit of Shankly, the fans group which is still active 16 years after its formation and which now has members on the club’s official supporters board. The latter became enshrined in Liverpool’s articles of association after FSG apologised for its leading role in the attempt to create a European Super League in 2021. 

This came after several other high-profile PR blunders that eroded trust. It remains to be seen whether figures like John W. Henry, FSG and Liverpool’s principle owner, will listen to the board rather than pay lip service and carry on regardless with his own plans. Roberts says the ongoing challenge is “getting them to understand the culture”, and it does not help the relationship when Henry’s business partner, Tom Werner (Liverpool’s chairman), speaks so enthusiastically about taking Premier League fixtures away from Anfield and potentially hosting them in other parts of the world.

There was a time when either Everton or Liverpool’s local owner not showing at a match would dominate conversations in pubs and get reported in the local paper. Now, that only happens if they actually turn up.

Leading FSG figures usually fly in from Boston, Massachusetts, attending a couple of games a season — Werner was at Liverpool’s recent game against Real Madrid, while Henry was in the stands for the first home game of the season against Brentford. They appoint executives and dispatch them to Merseyside, or London, where the club has long had an office, to run the business on their behalf. Such individuals are under pressure to drive revenues as far as they can, in theory improving the economic possibilities of the team.

John W. Henry visits Anfield for the Brentford game in August (Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Roberts says ticketing is an especially thorny issue at Liverpool due to the popularity of the club. It feels like locals are under attack: that there is a race to get the richest person’s bum onto a seat.

As far as Roberts is concerned, a club that markets its image from the energy that Anfield occasionally creates is treading on dangerous ground. “The Kop still has power,” he insists. “But if you squeeze the fans and they drop off, there is a risk that the place gets filled with spectators rather than supporters and with that, you kill the golden goose.”

This, he adds, should act as a warning to Evertonians as they embark on their own American adventure. 

Like Roberts, Liverpool metro mayor Steve Rotheram is a season ticket holder at Anfield and he understands such anxieties. In October, he spent a fortnight in North America exploring trade opportunities and the experience made him realise how powerful a brand Liverpool has abroad due to its connections with football and music, as well as its central role as a port in the movement of the Irish diaspora that spread across the Atlantic in the 19th century.

He says such history helps start conversations with American businesses from sectors like bioscience and digital innovation, which are now interested in investing in Merseyside due to the availability of land near the waterfront on both sides of the Mersey river, a hangover from the harsh economic measures of the 1980s and the decline that followed. 

Rotheram says football, especially, plays a significant role in the visitor economy to the region, which in 2018 was worth £6.2billion. A thriving Everton playing at a stadium that does a lot more than host football matches every fortnight has the potential to add to that pot. The site at Bramley-Moore promises to regenerate the area around it and, currently, there are small signs of that change. Now Everton’s immediate financial concerns have gone away, perhaps businesses hoping to move in can proceed with more confidence.

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To reach the third professional football club on Merseyside attracting American investment, you have to cross the river.

If Rotheram gets his way, a walkable bridge will connect Liverpool to Wirral, the home of Tranmere Rovers, and potentially boost the peninsula’s economy. But for the time being, there are just two transport options: a tunnel under the Mersey or, more pleasurably, a ferry which takes less than seven minutes to sail from the Pier Head, beneath the famous Liver Buildings, to Seacombe.

In the middle of this journey, as the ferry juts north, there is a different view of Everton’s new stadium, positioned between a scrapyard and a wind farm, both of which are in the shadow of a brooding tobacco warehouse that is the biggest brick building in the world. Everton’s new home is much closer to the city and might seem enormous from the land, glistening from whichever angle you look at it, but it does not dominate the skyline from the brown, scudding channels of the Mersey.

Everton’s new stadium, as viewed from Birkenhead across the Mersey (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

When the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne sailed across the same stretch of water in 1854, he recalled a scene that he thought neatly captured the personality of the Liverpudlians he’d encountered over the previous six months, having been sent to the city as American consul.

There, on the ferry, was a labourer eating oysters using a jack knife taken from his pocket, tossing shell after shell overboard. Once satisfied, the labourer pulled out a clay pipe and started puffing away contentedly. 

According to Hawthorne, the labourer’s “perfect coolness and independence” was mirrored by some of the other passengers. “Here,” Hawthorne wrote, “a man does not seem to consider what other people will think of his conduct but whether it suits his convenience to do so.”

Hawthorne did not specify whether the labourer was from Liverpool or the piece of land to the west now known as Wirral. To any outsider, the places and their residents tend to be viewed as one of the same.

On Merseyside, however, distinctions are made: Liverpudlians tend to identify themselves as tougher and sharper, while those from “over the water”, tend to have softer accents and are once removed from the struggles of the city.

In truth, both areas suffered in the late 1970s and 80s when unemployment ripped through its docks and shipyards. Whereas Liverpool’s city centre has been transformed in the decades since, the Wirral’s waterfront feels less promising. Whereas Liverpool has the Albert Dock, museums and a business district punctuated by glassy high rises, Wirral has very few distinguishable features from the river beyond its scaly, grey sea wall.

Three miles or so from the terminal in Seacombe lies Prenton, the home of Tranmere, a football club that returned to the Football League in 2018, having fallen on hard times since the early 1990s when it threatened to reach the Premier League.

Tranmere’s homely but ageing Prenton Park ground (Simon Hughes/The Athletic)

That history is one of the reasons why an American consortium led by Tacopina has an application with the EFL to try and buy the club from former player, Mark Palios, who later acted as the chief executive of the English Football Association.

The Athletic reported in September that Tacopina was attempting to “harness the power of his celebrity contacts” to try to propel Tranmere up the divisions from League Two. In a report the following month, it was revealed on these pages that rapper A$AP Rocky and Las Vegas Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby were two of the investors.

According to a source involved in the deal, who would like to remain anonymous to protect working relationships, there is a belief the takeover will be completed in early 2025. While the source suggests it has taken longer than expected to reach this point after an unnamed investor dropped out, The Athletic has been told separately that an unnamed investor’s application was rejected by the EFL. This led to the buying group trying to source a replacement. The EFL declined to comment.

Tacopina has been involved in Italian football for a decade, with mixed success. He knows Tranmere is not a sexy name but neither was Wrexham before they were taken over by the Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney in 2021. While Tranmere has a fight this season to retain its Football League status, Tacopina would be taking on a club that more or less breaks even. 

Palios is naturally cautious. For years, he’s wanted to find a minority partner but interested parties have tended to find there isn’t much up-side for such investment. Palios has since been able to convince Tacopina that Tranmere has significant potential with a full takeover, that the club has geography on its side and could become the region’s third wheel.

Joe Tacopina, sat next to former U.S. President Donald Trump, wants to buy Tranmere (Andrew Kelly-Pool/Getty Images)

More than 500,000 people live on the Wirral but the majority cannot get tickets for Liverpool or Everton. There is an interest in Tranmere but many Wirral residents are only would-be fans. That would surely change with an upwardly mobile team, as Tranmere were in the 1990s when it tried to reach the top flight and a packed Prenton Park witnessed a series of exciting cup runs.

Tranmere is worth around £20million in assets. Even if the club reached the Championship, the gateway to the Premier League, the value would increase significantly, potentially leaving Tacopina with a profit if he decided to sell. Importantly, the stadium is owned by the club and Tacopina would be inheriting that. Tacopina takes confidence from the stories of clubs like Bournemouth and Brentford, who are now established in the Premier League despite playing in similar-sized stadiums to Prenton Park (Bournemouth’s is actually considerably smaller) and with little history of success at the top level. 

Prenton Park, however, does not have the facilities to generate much revenue outside of matchdays. In the boom of the early 90s, the venue was rebuilt on three sides but that did not include the main stand, which remains a relic of corrugated iron and brick. Lorraine Rogers, the chairperson before Palios, suggested the stand was costing Tranmere £500,000 a year to maintain. In 2021, a League Two game with Stevenage was postponed after a part of the roof flew off during a storm.

Palios has explored other stadium options. From the Mersey, the West float slipway leads to Bidston, where a site has been discussed but diehard fans are not enthusiastic about a move three miles away which would take the club away from its roots and potentially position it next to a waste plant, and where there are few pubs and transport links are limited.

Last summer, Palios suggested the zone was ripe for redevelopment in an interview with Liverpool Business News. “I advise my children, if ever they invest in property, invest in the south bank of the river,” he said. “As sure as apples fall from trees, this place is going to get developed.”

Any relocation, however, would need assistance from Wirral Waters as well as a council that for a decade has carefully been trying to manage its budgets due to cuts from central government. At the start of December, the Liverpool Echo reported that the council will be asking the government for a £20million bailout to prevent it from having to declare bankruptcy. 

Tranmere’s ground rises out of the streets in Birkenhead (Lewis Storey/Getty Images)

While it is generally accepted the Palios era is near an end and Tranmere needs to find a way to move forward, there is a wariness and some Tranmere supporters are questioning whether they want someone who has represented Trump in a rape trial running their club. 

Matt Jones, the presenter of the Trip to the Moon podcast, speaks of “excitement, curiosity and fear”. Two years ago, he tracked down Bruce Osterman, Tranmere’s previous American owner (and the first in English football), to San Francisco.

Osterman told Jones that in 1984, he was able to complete a takeover because Tranmere were “days away from shutting its doors”. Yet Osterman was humble enough to admit that he was ill-prepared for the challenges that followed, despite investing £500,000 in cash. “I didn’t know what the hell I was doing,” he admitted. “I had no experience in this area. I was a trial lawyer… I had no understanding of the history, or where we were going.”

Osterman says that if he had his time again, he “would probably have paid more attention to the team’s relationship with the community”. Over the next three and a half years, Tranmere’s financial position became bleaker and he ended up selling the club at a loss to Palios’ predecessor Peter Johnson, the son of a butcher who became a millionaire businessman in the food industry.

Johnson ended up buying Everton where he was much less popular. His story is a reminder that it is not just American owners who move around clubs, as Friedkin has. Johnson grew up a Liverpool fan, an inconvenient factoid which put him on the back foot at Goodison, where he encountered suspicious minds and hardened attitudes.

Cynicism is deeply embedded among Everton fans, who might wonder how long it will take for their club to see the benefits of being at a new stadium and under new ownership.

Yet Friedkin’s arrival potentially draws a line under much of the uncertainty. Simon Hart, a journalist and author who has written extensively about the club, speaks about the last few years being battered by “existential concerns relating to the club’s future to the extent you are largely numb, hoping just to survive. The impression that Friedkin seems reasonably sensible and hasn’t destroyed Roma is something to grasp and be grateful for.

“At the moment, the thing that needs answering is whether Everton can go into the new stadium as a Premier League club that is secure. There is a sense that anything that keeps the club alive is acceptable.”

Excitement is not the right word but relief might be. Hart thinks Goodison is irreplaceable, a venue where the terraces hang over the pitch and some of the timberwork dates back to the Victorian era. It is as much a part of the club’s identity as the Liver Buildings are to Liverpool. A departure inspires mixed emotions that swirl around the freezing reality that Everton has not won a trophy of any kind since 1995. 

As the years pass and the record extends, it becomes harder to escape. Hart describes Goodison as his “special place”, but it feels like “disappointment is soaked into every brick now”. He attended the 0-0 draw with Brentford in November when the visiting team were down to 10 men and it felt as though Goodison was weighed down by negative emotion.

Perhaps their new home allows the club to embrace a fresh start and, as he puts it, “allow Evertonians to look forward rather than back.”

(Top image: Getty Images/Design: Eamonn Dalton)

By Pete Sampson, Joe Rexrode and Seth Emerson

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — No. 7 Notre Dame cruised past No. 10 Indiana 27-17 in the first game of the 12-team College Football Playoff on Friday night. The Fighting Irish advance to play No. 2 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl on Jan. 1.

Two interceptions in the first three drives and a 98-yard touchdown run by Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love got the first on-campus Playoff game off to a dramatic start. But the fireworks fizzled from there, particularly for the Hoosiers, until they finally reached the end zone twice in the final two minutes to shrink the margin of defeat. Still, Indiana was held to its second-lowest scoring output of the season and was held to 278 yards of offense to Notre Dame’s 394. Indiana gained just 63 yards rushing to Notre Dame’s 193.

Fighting Irish quarterback Riley Leonard went 22-for-32 with 201 yards and one touchdown with another 30 yards and a score on the ground. But it was the effort of Notre Dame’s defense to stop Indiana’s usually high-powered offense that set this one apart.

The Athletic’s analysis:

Notre Dame’s defense dominates

Notre Dame opened the season asking its defense to carry it, which it did just about every week through Thanksgiving. The Irish asked their defense to do the same to open the postseason. Again, it answered the bell, holding Indiana to 17 points as the Hoosiers barely threatened the goal line short of a first-quarter drive that ended with a Xavier Watts interception.

It was a near-perfect game plan from defensive coordinator Al Golden, who turned up the pressure on Kurtis Rourke early and never let the Indiana quarterback get comfortable. Notre Dame’s defensive line had a lot to do with that, as the return of Howard Cross from an ankle sprain overwhelmed Indiana’s offensive line. Even though the Irish lost defensive tackle Rylie Mills and defensive end Bryce Young during the game due to injury, it didn’t matter much.

Indiana, the nation’s No. 2 scoring offense during the regular season at 43.3 points per game, had no chance.

The performance put to bed Notre Dame’s struggles at USC three weeks ago when the Irish were picked apart through the air until ending the game with back-to-back pick sixes. The performance was enough to wonder if Notre Dame had finally been stretched too thin, relying on underclassmen in the secondary with a pass rush losing steam.

Not exactly.

Indiana barely took shots against Notre Dame.

The Irish will be tested at a new level against Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and the growing injury list will be a concern. But in the final home game of the season, Notre Dame put another performance on tape to suggest it has a national championship-level defense. — Sampson

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Indiana had an incredible season, but Ohio State and Notre Dame pulled off the mask

Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers don’t need to apologize for making the College Football Playoff with an 11-1 record. The CFP committee doesn’t have to apologize, either. Indiana played dominant football for most of the season, against a schedule that looked much more difficult than it ended up being. But Notre Dame’s romp in tandem with the Hoosiers’ 38-15 loss at Ohio State combine to tell the story of a team that couldn’t hang up front against supremely talented defenses. Michigan exposed that offensive line a bit in its loss at Indiana as well. Kurtis Rourke had little time to throw and missed some he needed to make on the rare occasions he was able to scan the field.

It was a historic, spectacular debut season for Cignetti. It ended with a reminder that a program with this history producing a true national title contender in one year simply isn’t realistic. — Rexrode

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What’s next? Georgia in the Sugar Bowl

Kirby Smart noticed what Notre Dame fans were yelling while the Georgia coach appeared on ESPN’s “College GameDay” on Friday afternoon: “We want Georgia! We want Georgia!”

“They gotta win this one first,” Smart replied, smiling, amid the booing.

Notre Dame won, setting up a marquee matchup that harkens to Georgia history, and Smart’s tenure.

It’s a redux of the 1981 Sugar Bowl, when Georgia won its second-ever national title. Then in 2017, it was at Notre Dame where Smart launched his program with a one-point win, on its way to an unexpected run to the national championship game. Georgia won the rematch in Athens two years later, though it was also close.

That was when Brian Kelly was the coach. Georgia is still essentially the same talent-laden, physical SEC program, just with a more modern passing offense. The question is how far Marcus Freeman has taken a Notre Dame program that has wilted in the postseason before.

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The Fighting Irish are a physical team. The Bulldogs haven’t had their usual dominance in the trenches but much of that was because of injuries, and now they’re as healthy as they’ve been all year.

Georgia’s defense is predicated on stopping the run and taking its chances against the pass. But it’s been susceptible to edge runs this year, so one has to imagine the cringe Smart felt watching Love go 98 yards down the left sideline. Love probably won’t outrun Georgia’s defensive backs like that, but he could get a lot of chunk plays on the outside. Georgia has also been susceptible to dual-threat quarterbacks, so Leonard’s feet could be a headache.

Then again, so could new Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton in his first college start. Stockton vs. Notre Dame’s solid secondary will also be interesting. Georgia does figure to have much better skill position players than Indiana, especially with tailbacks Trevor Etienne and Nate Frazier.

All in all, it’s a hard game to predict. During Smart’s appearance, ESPN’s Rece Davis pointed out that Notre Dame has never beaten Georgia. That’s true, but all three games have been decided by one possession. No one should be surprised if the fourth matchup is just as close. — Emerson

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(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

By Zack Rosenblatt, Dianna Russini and Michael Silver

Woody Johnson decided to do his own research.

The New York Jets’ owner was at his house in Palm Beach, Fla., last February, discussing potential offseason acquisitions with team decision-makers as they watched game tape. Wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, a former Denver Broncos first-round pick, flashed on the screen. Jets general manager Joe Douglas expressed interest, according to someone familiar with the meeting. Johnson took out his phone and started typing.

A few weeks later, Douglas and his Broncos counterpart, George Paton, were deep in negotiations for a trade that would have sent Jeudy to the Jets and given future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers another potential playmaker. The Broncos felt a deal was near. Then, abruptly, it all fell apart. In Denver’s executive offices, they couldn’t believe the reason why.

Douglas told the Broncos that Johnson didn’t want to make the trade because the owner felt Jeudy’s player rating in “Madden NFL,” the popular video game, wasn’t high enough, according to multiple league sources. The Broncos ultimately traded the receiver to the Cleveland Browns. Last Sunday, Jeudy crossed the 1,000-yard receiving mark for the first time in his career.

Coming into this season, the Jets had hopes of ending the franchise’s 13-year playoff drought — the longest in the four major men’s North American sports — and quieting years of talk about the franchise’s dysfunction. Instead, this season has only cemented the Jets’ reputation.

Head coach Robert Saleh was fired five games into the campaign. Douglas was fired six weeks later. Johnson suggested benching Rodgers due to poor performance — a Jets spokesperson said the owner was “being provocative. He made the statement in jest to see how it would be handled.” A week later, the Jets traded for Davante Adams, the All-Pro wideout and Rodgers’ close friend and former teammate in Green Bay. New York has stumbled to a 4-10 record and will miss the postseason for the 14th straight season.

Another offseason of turnover awaits, and at the root of the franchise’s problems is Johnson, who was characterized as an over-involved, impulsive owner in conversations with more than 20 people in and around the Jets organization — current and former players, coaches and team executives — who were granted anonymity in order to speak openly without fear of reprisal.

“They keep on doing the same thing over and over: they change the football people. The football people are not the issue,” one former executive said. “It’s, ‘Hey, I have brain cancer.’ And, ‘Well, just cut off your foot.’”

Johnson, who declined The Athletic’s request for comment, soured on his franchise quarterback less than a year after betting big on him, denigrated his own players in the locker room and seemed to follow decision-making advice from his teenage sons, according to various team and league sources. And the proposed Jeudy trade wasn’t the only time Johnson cited “Madden” ratings when evaluating players.

“There are organizations where it is all set up for you to win,” said a player with the team in 2023. “It feels completely different (with the Jets). It’s the most dysfunctional place imaginable.”

Ahead of the Jets-Giants preseason finale at MetLife Stadium in 2019, an administrative assistant popped into the team’s coaching offices to make an announcement to then-head coach Adam Gase and his staff. Woody Johnson, then serving as U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom in the Trump administration, was temporarily returning from London. The assistant said everyone should refer to Johnson as “Mr. Ambassador.”

That has held true long after Johnson left government and returned to his role as Jets chairman in January 2021, striking a discordant tone among those who believe the organization has long been plagued by mismanagement.

“I guess that’s what you’d call him,” one assistant coach said. “I’d never been around royalty before.”

Johnson is an heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune, but he spends most of his working days at the Jets facility in Florham Park, N.J., and often meets with the head coach and general manager. When he bought the team in 2000, Johnson thought he was inheriting Bill Belichick as coach — hand-picked by Bill Parcells to take over before Parcells resigned. Belichick lasted only one day, scribbling “I resign as HC of the NYJ” on a napkin at his introductory news conference before bolting for the New England Patriots.

The legendary coach has spent much of the past two decades torturing the Jets franchise, on the field and off of it. While out of coaching this fall, Belichick mocked Johnson in various media appearances (Belichick’s camp also reached out to the Jets about their head-coaching vacancy). In an appearance on ESPN’s “ManningCast” during a Monday night game between the Jets and Bills on Oct. 14 — New York’s first game since firing Saleh — Belichick described the owner’s approach to running the organization as “ready, fire, aim.”

Many who have been part of the Jets organization during Johnson’s tenure heard that comment and agreed. Others pointed to the owner’s words on Oct. 15, the day the Jets acquired Adams, when Johnson said, “Thinking is overrated.”

“Woody is just acting on instinct,” said a current Jets executive. “With Woody, it’s like, ‘I’m right — prove me wrong.’ You just don’t know what to expect … He’s been right enough, just with his random opinions, that (a bad decision) doesn’t dissuade him. And when he’s wrong, who’s gonna hold him accountable?”

During the annual NFL Draft, Johnson is known to keep to himself while decisions are being made, according to one former executive, then exit the room and retreat to a nearby snack bar with confidants to make “smart-ass lines” about the front office’s decisions. Team decision-makers didn’t appreciate Johnson’s after-the-fact critiques, but the owner was occasionally proven correct: The executive remembers Johnson being especially vocal when former general manager Mike Maccagnan drafted quarterback Christian Hackenberg out of Penn State in the second round of the 2016 Draft. Hackenberg never played a regular-season snap for the Jets.

Some inside the organization believe Johnson is consumed with the public perception of his franchise, sometimes at the expense of on-the-field success. When the Jets traded quarterback Zach Wilson to the Broncos last April, Denver asked Douglas to include the final pick of the draft (257th overall). According to a source familiar with the negotiations, Johnson instructed Douglas to instead trade the 256th pick — which the Jets also owned — so New York could select “Mr. Irrelevant,” the final pick of the draft who is annually celebrated upon his selection.

“Can you believe that?” the source said. “He thought he needed the Mr. Irrelevant pick to get a Brock Purdy (the final pick of the 2022 draft who has emerged as a franchise quarterback in San Francisco). I don’t think that’s ever happened in the history of the NFL: A team wanted a worse pick.”

The Broncos used pick No. 256 to take offensive guard Nick Gargiulo, who is now on the Broncos’ active roster. The Jets used the “Mr. Irrelevant” pick on Alabama safety Jaylen Key, who didn’t survive the final roster cutdown and is no longer on their practice squad.

Johnson weighs in on matters throughout the organization, from lineup decisions (he forced interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich to bench starting safety Tony Adams in November) to the team schedule (he wanted the Jets to practice during their bye week, much to the chagrin of team leaders). “He’s like most team owners,” the team spokesperson said. “He asks questions of his staff to better understand what their plans are.”

“Your job becomes managing Woody,” a current team executive said. “That’s not unique for an NFL GM — the difference here is that not only are you managing Woody, but you have to manage all the people who influence him. That could be family, that could be media, that could be people in the building.”

When Johnson left for the U.K. in 2017, his sons, Brick and Jack, were 11 and 9, respectively. When he returned, they were teenagers. Last year, Johnson started including his sons in some meetings at the team facility. For some Jets employees, the sons’ increasing involvement clarified their father’s propensity for sharing posts from X and articles from various outlets, including a blog called “Jets X-Factor,” with the organization’s top decision-makers.

“When we’re discussing things, you’ll hear Woody cite something that Brick or Jack read online that’s being weighed equally against whatever opinion someone else in the department has,” said one Jets executive.

“I answer to a teenager,” Douglas quipped to people close to him before the season in an acknowledgment of the perceived power dynamic.

Johnson’s reference to Jeudy’s “Madden” rating was, to some in the Jets’ organization, a sign of Brick and Jack’s influence. Another example came when Johnson pushed back on signing free-agent guard John Simpson due to a lackluster “awareness” rating in Madden. The Jets signed Simpson anyway, and he has had a solid season: Pro Football Focus currently has him graded as the eighth-best guard in the NFL.

The Jets spokesperson disputed the idea that Brick and Jack’s observations impact the organization’s decision-making process. “It is used as a reference point; it is not determinative,” the spokesperson said. “It’s really sad that an adult would use a misleading anecdote about teenagers to make their father look bad. It’s ridiculous, quite honestly, the idea that this was used to influence the opinion of experienced executives.

“(The sons) have no roles in the organization. It’s completely ridiculous to suggest that any outside info is intended to replace the opinions of (Woody Johnson’s) staff.”

The Johnson family’s behavior inside the Jets locker room has also become an issue, according to team and league sources. NFL locker rooms are restricted-access spaces typically limited to players, coaches, team personnel and media members. But Brick and Jack have brought friends — male and female — into the locker room, and current and former players and coaches told The Athletic that Woody Johnson, his wife, Suzanne Ircha Johnson, and his sons criticized players inside the locker room.

In 2022, quarterback Mike White played through broken ribs in a late-season game against the Seahawks with postseason hopes on the line. White played poorly; the Jets lost and were eliminated from playoff contention. After the game, with the quarterback in the showers after throwing his helmet to the locker room floor, multiple Jets players said they heard Woody Johnson say, “You should throw your helmet, you f—ing suck.” The statement got back to White. The team spokesperson said Johnson apologized to the quarterback, who declined to comment for this story.

In the postgame locker room after last year’s Week 17 loss to the Cleveland Browns, multiple players said they heard Johnson’s sons loudly disparaging certain Jets players.

This year, on Halloween night, the Jets registered their first victory since Saleh’s firing four weeks earlier. It was a significant moment for a struggling team. Rodgers walked into an energized locker room with a game ball in hand, and it was expected that he’d give the ball to Ulbrich, a customary gesture when a coach gets his first NFL win.

But before Rodgers could speak, Brick Johnson took another game ball and awarded it to wide receiver Garrett Wilson in a profanity-laced exclamation, which the owner’s son later posted to Instagram. Woody Johnson then gave Ulbrich the ball Rodgers had been holding. Multiple players said the energy felt drained out of the room.

“It was the most awkward, cringe-worthy, brutal experience,” one player said.

The high point of the Johnson-Rodgers marriage came at Rodgers’ introductory news conference, when he spoke of the Jets’ lone Super Bowl trophy — won in 1969 — looking a little “lonely.” New York entered the 2023 season as one of the league’s buzziest teams — and potentially Super Bowl contenders — and the Jets were selected to appear on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” during training camp. Johnson wore a custom-made chain featuring 80 carats of emeralds and diamonds spelling out “Woody,” a gift from star cornerback Sauce Gardner.

Then Rodgers tore his Achilles on the fourth play of the season, and everything changed. Following surgery, Rodgers rehabbed with the goal of potentially returning at the end of the season, but only if the Jets were still in playoff contention.

In Week 14, New York was mathematically eliminated with a 30-0 loss to the Dolphins. Rodgers preferred to rehab on his own in Los Angeles with an eye toward the 2024 season, but Johnson, according to team sources, insisted that Rodgers practice with the team, so the quarterback reluctantly returned to New York. When Rodgers was activated off injured reserve five days before Christmas, which resulted in the release of fullback Nick Bawden, Rodgers said on “The Pat McAfee Show” that the move wasn’t his idea.

“There was a conversation: ‘Do you want to practice?’ And I said, ‘Not at the expense of somebody getting cut.’ I know how this works,” Rodgers said. “I didn’t feel like I needed to practice to continue my rehab. I could do on-the-field stuff on the side. But obviously I got overruled there.”

Several Jets players and coaches — Garrett Wilson and running back Breece Hall, in particular — were unhappy with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett throughout the 2023 campaign. There were rumblings that Johnson wanted to fire Hackett, so Rodgers, who considers the coach a close friend, brought it up with the owner at the end of the season. The conversation “didn’t go over well” with Johnson, according to a current Jets executive.

Johnson ultimately didn’t force Saleh to fire Hackett, as he had with Mike LaFleur after the 2022 season. In the offseason, Saleh tried to hire a veteran offensive coach to join the Jets staff and potentially reduce Hackett’s role, speaking with Arthur Smith, Kliff Kingsbury, Luke Getsy and Eric Bieniemy. Rodgers got on the phone in an attempt to recruit, but each coach took jobs with offensive coordinator titles elsewhere.

Before this season, according to a team source, Johnson demanded that Saleh’s signature phrase — “All Gas, No Brakes” — be stripped off the walls around the facility. “Another completely out-of-context and false narrative,” the team spokesperson said. “That was removed as part of the entire organizational rebrand.” Saleh later introduced a new team motto: “Love and Regard,” which was not displayed on the facility’s walls.

Rodgers and Johnson spoke on Oct. 7, just after the Jets lost to the Vikings in London to drop to 2-3, a game behind the Bills in the AFC East with Buffalo coming to MetLife Stadium the following Monday night. According to a team source, Rodgers implored Johnson to remain patient.

The following morning, Saleh called Rodgers to let him know he was demoting Hackett and installing passing game coordinator Todd Downing as the new play caller. Rodgers made it clear to Saleh that he did not agree with the decision — so much so that Saleh told his staff to get backup Tyrod Taylor ready to play in case a banged-up, disgruntled Rodgers wouldn’t, according to a team source.

Shortly afterward, around 10 a.m. ET, Woody and Christopher Johnson, Woody’s brother and the Jets’ vice chairman, walked into Saleh’s office. Woody told Saleh he was fired. Saleh asked why. Woody told him he didn’t think Saleh could turn the season around and that the team needed a spark. Then the Johnsons walked out of the room.

Ulbrich, installed as the interim coach, went forward with Saleh’s plan to demote Hackett and managed to calm the waters with Rodgers, who hadn’t been in favor of firing Saleh, according to multiple team sources.

On the Dec. 3 episode of McAfee’s show, Rodgers, in reference to the 12-2 Detroit Lions, talked about how much of a difference it makes when owners back their coaches and general managers both privately and publicly. The next day, he was asked by members of the media if he felt that Jets ownership operates in that way.

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Rodgers said. “I cited an example I’ve seen. There were other examples in Green Bay, both for and maybe not, as for whoever was in charge. But I think it’s an important part of ownership to hire the right guys, set the vision and support them when the outside world is trying to tear them down.”

On follow-up, he was asked again whether he believes that’s been done in New York. “I’d have to look,” he replied. “I’ll ask you guys, has there been a lot of public comments? Supportive comments?”

The response from reporters that day? Not really, there have been firings.

“Yeah, there’s your answer,” Rodgers replied.

The Jets kept the exchange out of the transcript of Rodgers’ news conference.

In addition to firing the head coach and general manager and suggesting the benching of the star quarterback, Johnson has pursued cuts across the Jets organization.

This offseason, he forced Saleh to fire five coaches and wouldn’t allow Douglas to replace former assistant GM Rex Hogan (who Johnson forced Douglas to fire in January). “The open role was used to re-organize the staff,” the team spokesperson said. “The notion that he didn’t want that position replaced is untrue. The responsibilities were filled by employees who deserved promotions.”

The Jets didn’t hire officials for training camp, a standard practice in the NFL, after being the most penalized team in the league in 2023 (they are the third-most penalized team in 2024). They did have officials for two joint practices with the New York Giants and Washington Commanders, respectively.

Several men from Johnson’s investment group have been attending free agent, draft and other football operations meetings at Johnson’s behest over the last year, according to a current Jets executive. They’ve also interviewed Jets employees from across the organization about their roles and ways they feel the Jets can improve. “It was a positive initiative that identified real gaps in process and communication and collaboration,” the Jets spokesperson said. “(Woody Johnson) values the independent feedback. It’s a way to avoid groupthink. We learned a lot from it.”

Multiple Jets employees refer to the group of men as “The Bobs,” a nod to the condescending corporate efficiency consultants from the film “Office Space.” The arrival of “The Bobs” has only heightened a sense of dread around the building, where some employees don’t feel like they can speak freely.

“There’s no nice way to say what we need to say, which is: Unless we drastically alter our culture and the way we do things from the top down, we have no chance,” one executive said. “There’s not a comfortable environment where you can speak your mind and try to address things that could improve the situation. You have to tiptoe around it.”

The Jets spokesperson disputed that characterization. “That’s just a false premise,” the spokesperson said. “(Woody Johnson) really just seeks out and welcomes feedback and debate. We wouldn’t have been named one of the best places to work in New Jersey if people thought that way … there’s never been a complaint.”

Whether or not Aaron Rodgers will return for a third season in New York is one of the key questions facing the Jets this offseason. (Mike Ehrmann / Getty Images)

As recently as three-and-a-half years ago, there was a different atmosphere at Florham Park. Woody Johnson’s absence during the first Trump presidential term meant that Christopher was running the show.

Like Woody, Christopher Johnson was influenced perhaps too heavily by media coverage — one team source said he was known to lean on prominent media members for advice during his head coach and GM searches in 2019 — but the impression he gave to many in the building was that he wanted to give the keys to the people he hired and let them take the wheel.

“Chris was really, really laid back,” said a former Jets coach. “He’s not a person with any type of ego. When he would talk with you, he was really a regular dude. He never, ever acted like he was the owner or he was in charge; he was just basically trying to get along.”

When Christopher Johnson hired Douglas (in 2019) and Saleh (in 2021), both were under the impression that, when he returned, Woody Johnson would take a similarly hands-off approach. They quickly learned how wrong that assumption was as Woody took control and Chris stepped back.

“It’s not like he just disappeared, but you wouldn’t know if Chris was in the building or even in the room with you,” a former Jets executive said. “He’s just so quiet and reserved. And that’s not a bad thing.”

Some Jets employees hoped Woody might retake his ambassadorship in the U.K. after Donald Trump was elected president in November, which would once again put Christopher in charge. But on Dec. 2, Trump nominated billionaire Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens to the post. According to team sources, the decision came as a surprise to the Jets owner.

As the Jets close the 2024 season, they’ll enter an offseason promising wholesale change, familiar territory for an organization that hasn’t found much stability since Johnson bought the franchise from the estate of Leon Hess in 2000. In 25 years, the Jets have employed eight interim or full-time head coaches (nine if you count Belichick) and seven general managers. They’ll need another new head coach and general manager and must decide if they want to bring Rodgers back for what would be his 21st NFL season — if he wants to return.

Those decisions remain Woody Johnson’s to make.

(Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; photos: Chris Coduto, Matthew Stockman, Cooper Neil, Perry Knotts / Getty Images)