Fan-tastic day for Jets' faithful: Getting to see Aaron Rodgers up close and personal
Jets QB Aaron Rodgers practices during training camp at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center in Florham Park, N.J., on Saturday. Credit: Patrick E. McCarthy
FLORHAM PARK, N.J.
For several months now, they heard about it, they read about it, they pined for it and they even celebrated it.
At about 10 a.m. on Saturday, they finally saw it.
That’s when Aaron Rodgers emerged for his first Jets training camp practice that was open to the public, giving the long-suffering fans of the team — or at least the couple of thousand who were lucky enough to snag tickets to the day’s practice and find a seat in the bleachers stacked up around the field — their first actual look at the new quarterback in action.
If seeing is believing, this crowd left no doubt about its faith in him and, for perhaps the first time in a while, the franchise.
They are all-in.
So much so that they even cheered for Zach Wilson when he completed a few passes with the second team.
They cheered louder and more often for the reason Wilson doesn’t have to play anymore, though.
Jets fans have been able to embrace Rodgers at various points since he arrived. His strolls around Manhattan often draw positive acknowledgment from others, he said this past week, and he was applauded at Knicks and Rangers games in the spring. Those run-ins were either individual or on a parenthetical basis.
Saturday was like seeing an arena band perform at a small nightclub: Cozy, intimate, personal.
More than his introductory news conferences and early meetings with coaches and teammates, this was his true “Welcome to the Jets” moment.
And just in case Rodgers ever briefly forgot where he was for a moment after nearly two decades in Green Bay, the fans helped by spelling out the name of his new team on a regular basis.
“I love it,” Robert Saleh said of the environment. “When the fans come, it’s easy to coach because now those guys are excited to show out . . . But I love when they get the chant going, I love the fat man pump-up before practice [when some of the rookie linemen removed their shirts and ran by the stands giving high-fives to the fans]. I love all of it. It’s all fun.”
The heightened intensity led to the first few player dust-ups of camp, but that only added to the spirit of the day and revved the atmosphere in the seating sections even higher.
Among the snippets of conversations overheard from those stands during the practice:
“Most of us wouldn’t be here without him,” one fan said to another of Rodgers being the draw for so many in attendance.
Another fan was wearing a black number 8 game jersey he’d bought at the gift shop set up in a tent in the parking lot. Asked how much they were going for, he said he didn’t even bother to notice.
“Just take my money,” he said breathlessly.
One young woman was wearing a green number 12 jersey. Joe Namath fan? No. It was a Packers shirt of her former favorite quarterback.
When asked by someone nearby if it was hard for her to see Rodgers playing for a new team, she sighed about the divorce with Green Bay: “It was time.’’
The buzz began early in the morning when the first cars showed up and the shuttle buses from the parking lots to the field began running.
At 10 or so, Rodgers emerged from the building to a standing ovation and his name being chanted. He waved and nodded politely as he went about his business of stretching and starting his routine.
The frenzy continued throughout the workout, although it was difficult to maintain the juice with so many short passes, checkdowns and screens on the call sheet. The offense is being assembled from the ground up, and there is still a lot of up to get to.
Then, about an hour and a half into the festivities, the fans saw what they came for.
In a two-play span, there was something for everyone.
Rodgers threw a deep pass down the right sideline for Garrett Wilson that was broken up by Sauce Gardner. On the next snap, Rodgers hit Wilson on a slant against Gardner and Wilson quickly hit the brakes, cut to the outside and dashed for extra yardage.
By the time the practice wrapped up, Rodgers and the offense had shown their initial teeth of this camp. He hit Tyler Conklin for a touchdown in red-zone drills, his first scoring play of the summer, then found Corey Davis in the end zone for what looked to be a two-point conversion.
On the last snap of the day, Rodgers got the defense to jump offside and used the free play to hit a leaping Mecole Hardman Jr. in the back of the end zone.
The offense celebrated as if they’d won a game.
The fans celebrated as if they had won something bigger.
Dignity. Respect. Relevance.
All right in front of their own eyes.
Even owner Woody Johnson, walking among the players, chatting with Saleh and exchanging handshakes with fans along the fence line throughout the day, seemed overjoyed by the enticing aroma his team is giving off after years of stench.
Throw in the weather — sunny but not too hot with a cool summer breeze — and there was one word rarely uttered in these parts that could aptly be used to describe the day:
Perfect.
Where did Saturday rank among those had-to-be-there moments in Jets training camp history?
Well, there was that thrilling day when Brett Favre made his Jets debut at training camp in 2008, but that was at Hofstra. There were high expectations for the teams that went to the AFC Championship Games more than a decade ago, with Rex Ryan and his boys putting on a show just as much as they were practicing football, but those camps were held up at Cortland.
This was, many of the long-time employees of the team noted without question, the most electric day of training camp the Jets have ever had in Florham Park. And while there may not have been all that many more fans than at previous camps held in central New Jersey according to the numbers, the vibe was what set everything apart.
There will be more fans at the open practices throughout the rest of camp, including Sunday and during this coming week. There will be many more thousands of fans for the games at MetLife and across the country who cram into stadiums to see Rodgers and the Jets perform in actual games.
There may even be a lucky few who, if things go exceedingly well, get a chance to be in Las Vegas in February rooting for the team they first watched in person this summer, having the rare opportunity to say they were at both ends of a potentially magic season.
But Saturday was so special because it was the first time Rodgers actually performed the key task for which he was brought here.
Touchdowns, sure. Impressive play, absolutely. But it is more than that which arrived with him, and he delivered it.
He made believers of those who saw.
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.
