Just like that, everything has changed for Jets
Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, left, poses for a picture with owner Woody Johnson after an NFL news conference at the team's training facility in Florham Park, N.J., Wednesday. Credit: AP/Seth Wenig
The guy in the organization who knows Aaron Rodgers best, the guy who is one of the main reasons why Aaron Rodgers even considered coming to the Jets, has seen this phenomenon before. For three years, Nathaniel Hackett worked with the quarterback in Green Bay and for three years he was witness to the palpable difference Rodgers makes with his mere presence.
“When he walks in the building,” the Jets’ new offensive coordinator said, “everything changes.”
That was certainly the case on Wednesday when Rodgers strolled in through the big glass doors of the Jets’ facility for the first time. The whirlwind week that began with the framework of a trade with the Packers on Monday, led to the cross-country flight from Rodgers’ California home to New Jersey on Tuesday night, then directly to Rodgers’ first official day as a Jet on Wednesday, turned a franchise whose long track record of failure would constantly creep into every move it made into something they have not truly been in a very long time.
The Jets became believers in themselves.
They’ve had confidence in the recent past, sure, but not to the level that Rodgers has brought them. Not to the peak it hit on Wednesday.
And all it took was a trim, charismatic, soon-to-be-40-year-old dude making himself right at home in his new digs, smiling disarmingly, literally kicking off his shoes to attend position meetings barefoot on his first day, while also casually noting that the Super Bowl trophy in the lobby looks “lonely.”
The upper reaches of the organization — from the owner to the head coach — have been exceedingly and almost embarrassingly careful not to put too big a burden on their newest acquisition. There have been no declarations of the team making the playoffs, nevermind having the potential to win it all. They all have too many scars from past promises to venture into that territory.
Rodgers — and so far only Rodgers — has been the one to not just talk about, but embrace the half century of futility that the Jets have endured and openly discuss ending that drought. The way he talked about the franchise’s trophy case and having watched grainy Super Bowl III highlights on VHS — itself a dated medium — would have sounded like he was trash-talking the Jets had he not in the next breath stated his intention to do something about changing all of that.
“It’s time for all of us to set the proper expectations about this team,” Rodgers said. “Like I said last year when we played them, they’re not the same old Jets. This is a team that has a legitimate opportunity to do something special this year. We have to start manifesting with our words the desires of our heart and the potential we see in each other… That’s the first step, in my opinion, in achieving your goals, is you have to first deeply believe in what you are doing and believe in the possibility.”
First step accomplished. Now, it’s up to the rest of the Jets to follow him.
Rodgers didn’t arrive in Florham Park riding a thunderbolt the way some others have entered the organization. He isn’t the firebrand Rex Ryan was when he took the job as head coach and made many boastful remarks about what he would accomplish. Rodgers’ swagger comes with much less volume, much more accomplishment. He simply strode in with the confidence of a player who feels he was destined to not only come to the Jets but turn them into something they haven’t been in his lifetime or those of many of the fans: Winners.
“It was the Jets and only the Jets for me,” he said of his feelings once he decided he wanted to continue his career and after the team’s brass flew out to visit him in California. “At that point [after the meeting] I felt like this is where I am supposed to be. I really try to listen to the signs and synchronicities that the universe puts in our face every day and this was basically the direction everything was pointing.”
There are going to be inevitable bumps. Rodgers’ well-documented quirks will eventually come out. He’ll eventually be asked about things like vaccinations, politics, and the laundry list of topics that went unspoken in the confines of this first introduction. On Wednesday, everyone was on their best behavior, and it was easy to see the aspects of Rodgers that the Jets believe can lift them back to relevance while temporarily dismissing anything that could scuttle their plans.
Rodgers clearly has his own way of doing things. He mentioned on Wednesday, as he did on the Pat McAfee podcast last month, an exasperation at the Jets parking their cars on the street in front of his Malibu home rather than ducking into a more secluded spot during their visit there. And after team owner Woody Johnson introduced Rodgers on Wednesday, the quarterback’s first public remarks as a Jet were to instruct his new boss on what to do next.
“Aren’t you supposed to shake my hand?” Rodgers said as Johnson left the podium for his front row seat.
Johnson stood back up and did just that.
That was a very good sign. It didn’t just seal Rodgers’ arrival with a photo op. It was an indication the Jets are going to be listening, learning, and leaning into what Rodgers has been and what he has stood for over the past 18 seasons – MVPs, perennial playoff participant, a Super Bowl title -- rather than dragging him down to what they have been and stood for during the same timeframe.
Robert Saleh said it may take a few weeks for the players on the team, many of them young enough to have watched Rodgers on TV (or more likely video games) while they were growing up and first introduced to the sport, to get over being starry-eyed around their new quarterback.
On Wednesday, it wasn’t only the 20-something kids who were agog.
Saleh maintained from the moments the possibility of landing Rodgers were first brainstormed a confidence this day would come, but even he admitted to being a little shaken when it finally arrived.
When Rodgers finally arrived.
“Shoot,” Saleh said, “just seeing him walk through the building, for me, I was like, ‘Damn. He’s here.’”
Hackett was right. Everything has changed.
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.
