Aaron Rodgers' arrival comes with microscopic examination
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers answers questions from reporters after an OTA at Atlantic Health Jets Training Center in Florham Park, N.J., on Tuesday. Credit: Noah K. Murray
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Back in the 1990s, the MTA undertook a massive two-year project to clean the decades of soot and smoke and filth that had accumulated on the ceiling of Grand Central Station. When they were finished, the gorgeous mural that is worth any amount of neck craning to appreciate came back to vivid life.
Mostly.
In one upper corner of the enormous room, those in charge of the scouring left a small rectangle unrestored. To this day, that 9-inch by 18-inch space remains in all its grimy glory, a reminder not just of the kinds of filth we once subjected ourselves to, but a contrast by which to further appreciate the grandeur that replaced it.
Tuesday’s Jets practice was that 9 x 18 rectangle.
It was supposed to be the first time Aaron Rodgers practiced in front of anyone other than the team’s internal personnel, the first chance to see him throw passes without the stylized glow of the Jets’ social media team iced all over it. That’s why about 40 members of the media showed up to cover the event, not to mention the two dozen or so corporate muckety-mucks who took an extended lunch to stand on the field and gawk at the four-time MVP. It created a standing-room-only atmosphere in the team’s press room, something that, had anyone been able to remember that far back, would be reminiscent of a playoff atmosphere rather than an offseason workout.
But then Rodgers didn’t do much of anything. He seemed to be nursing a tender leg and spent most of the day on the field milling around behind the huddles and far away from the drills, his hands stuffed into the pouch pocket of his pullover. While Rodgers never even put on a helmet, Zach Wilson wound up leading the team through its paces.
It was one last reminder — at least the Jets hope it’s one of the last of them — of just how banal and tedious these kinds of days were before Rodgers arrived, how lackluster and uninspiring the football around here has looked for most of the last decade and a half. Over time it had become difficult to tell how sordid things had gotten in Florham Park, how caked in crud the attitudes inside and the perceptions outside the walls had gotten.
Trading for Rodgers last month wiped a lot of that away, and it’s been mostly fresh-and-clean living for the Jets since. Having their prized quarterback as a bystander on Tuesday, though, was the first bit of negativity (admittedly mild if one can only ignore the online hysterics) that has befallen the Jets since Rodgers’ arrival.
Shortly after practice, Rodgers swooped into the clown car of a media room to give an update on, well, just about everything. He said he “tweaked” his calf during pre-practice conditioning and decided it was wise to “take a vet day” rather than escalate whatever it was that was bugging him. “I don’t think it’s too serious,” he said. That settled, he went on to discuss topics ranging from the coaching staff to the playbook to the merits of the TV show “Jersey Shore.”
It's not unfair to suggest that in recent times the tight-lipped Jets might have let a quarterback injury, mild as this one appears to have been, fester in silence and eventually vanish from lack of acknowledgment. Rodgers simply addressed it with cool and charisma and it was over with.
Somewhere in their bruised psyches the Jets must have understood that acquiring Rodgers would bring a level of scrutiny not seen by the organization since its last postseason appearance 12 seasons ago. Tuesday was the confirmation that when it comes to their quarterback, there is no such thing as a small anything. Rodgers goes to a Rangers or Knicks playoff game? It’s a story. A good one. Rodgers is sidelined on just the second day of OTAs? That's a story, too.
It isn’t just the games that are going to be played in prime time this season. Every element of the Jets’ entire season — and offseason — is now ticker-worthy national news.
“There are going to be changes,” Robert Saleh said Tuesday. “We have to stay on our toes . . . There are going to be all kinds of curveballs, if you will.”
Saleh was answering a question about his team’s schedule of 17 games, many of them to be played in standalone time slots on unorthodox days. The Jets are not a Sunday at 1 p.m. team anymore and Saleh might as well have been speaking to every other aspect of this season, too.
But Tuesday illustrated for the Jets that Rodgers also has the ability to calm the very flames of curiosity and scrutiny that he brought with him from his Hall of Fame life in Green Bay. He’s a star quarterback on the field — right, we know — but Tuesday showed he is also a masterful lion tamer at the lectern.
So there was no footage of Rodgers zipping the ball to Garrett Wilson and Allen Lazard. No throws that defy physics. In that regard it was a dud of a day that, like so many in the Jets’ history, didn’t come close to living up to what it was supposed to be.
But it was just one day. One wretched rectangle on a ceiling with the potential to be mesmerizing and glorious for the Jets over the next few months.
“Every day I wake up excited about coming to the facility,” he said. “I have an excitement about coming down Jets Drive. It was surreal, for sure, and strange to look at my locker and see No. 8 and be rocking the Jets gear. But every day there’s been something that’s kind of been a little special sign or a synchronicity or just a cool moment that reminds me I am in the right place.”
Rodgers was a complete non-factor in Tuesday’s practice.
He still managed to prove that, yes, he is in the right place. Not just for himself but for the Jets, too.
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.
