Jets teammates can aspire to emulate Aaron Rodgers' claim to Fame
Jets QB Aaron Rodgers during training camp at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center in Florham Park, N.J., on Aug. 1. Credit: Patrick E. McCarthy
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Aaron Rodgers will finally visit his future forever home this week.
The Jets are playing in the Hall of Fame game on Thursday night and part of their itinerary in Canton, Ohio, will include a grand tour of the museum that houses the artifacts and busts of the men that have made professional football the powerful sports enterprise it is.
For most of the players and coaches on the trip this will be their first time visiting the Hall. It will be for Rodgers, too. Although he was a member of the Packers team that was scheduled to play in the Hall of Fame game in 2016 (that contest was cancelled due to the poor condition of the artificial turf), he has never set foot inside the actual building.
That will change in the coming days.
Unlike the rest of those sightseers and tourists that populate the Jets roster, though, this will almost certainly not be Rodgers’ last appearance there.
In fact, there is a good chance the next time he swings into town after this trip will be for his own induction.
Not that he’s ready to take his place among the all-time greats just yet.
“I mean, that’s going to be a while,” he said. “I’ll play a few more years and then it’ll be five after that [per the Hall’s waiting period rules]. Who knows what’s going to happen in eight or nine years? That’s a long way off.”
Maybe. But it’s close enough — and enough of a certainty — for the rest of the Jets to appreciate having a future member of the Hall playing amongst them.
From the day he arrived in the spring, right up until Tuesday’s media availability, the Jets have embraced Rodgers’ inevitable designation. Hardly a day goes by at One Jets Drive during which he is not referred to as “Hall of Famer Aaron Rodgers.” They’ve even dropped the polite prefix of “future Hall of Famer” and cut right to it, correctly assuming that the gold jacket is already sized and the likeness already being sculpted.
Head coach Robert Saleh has worked with a number of players throughout his career who, in the coming years, may find their way to the ranks of the Hall. Richard Sherman, Bobby Wagner, certainly others. Asked on Tuesday when he starts to think of a player in such highly honored terms, he said: “When he’s 39 and can still sling it.”
Despite demurring on any future in Canton, Rodgers said he is looking forward to this upcoming visit.
“I do have a lot of love for the history of the game,” he said. “I grew up watching old VHS tapes… I’ll be excited to be there and see some of the older guys and stuff that I grew up watching. There is a lot of Packers history there obviously, stuff from the first couple of Super Bowls and some of the greats who have played there.”
It’s hard to imagine someone as self-aware and thoughtful as Rodgers walking into the awe-inspiring bust room at the Hall without at least wondering where his own carved face will eventually be placed, what memorabilia from his career will be included among the collection.
No matter what happens here with the Jets in the coming months and years, Rodgers will eventually be back in Canton. His resume from 18 seasons in Green Bay, four MVP awards, Super Bowl title and countless records all warrant that. His time in New York will not subtract from what he has accomplished.
It can very well add to it, however. Even in the Hall there is a hierarchy, and a championship with the Jets that ends their prolonged title drought would certainly hoist Rodgers further up the list. It would cement him into the single digits among all-time quarterbacks, that’s for sure.
There are a few current Jets players who at least have the kindling in place for Hall of Fame careers, including the two reigning NFL rookies of the year Sauce Gardner and Garrett Wilson, perhaps Quinnen Williams, among others. Although they have a long way to go before anyone starts hyping them for enshrinement, Saleh said he will remind them all of the potential they have during their upcoming visit.
“We have a really cool group,” he said. “There are a lot of guys who can do something special in their careers. Who’s to say right now, for a few of us in the locker room, why can’t there be a few more [in the Hall]?”
Maybe. But for now there is just the one who is a lock.
Rare is the chance to work with someone who is still in the midst of a career so destined for the Hall. It affords the rest of the team a glimpse of what that actually looks like. The Jets are playing in this game because two of their former players, Joe Klecko and Darrelle Revis, are being inducted this weekend.
They were heralded and adored by the fans here for years, but to the majority of the current players, particularly those in their early 20s, they might as well be Renaissance painters.
Luckily these Jets don’t have to dig that far back in their team’s archives and film vaults to see what Hall-worthy greatness looks like.
It walks among them.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
