Aaron Rodgers says it was Jets' idea to put him on active roster
Jets head coach Robert Sale, left, speaks with quarterback Aaron Rodgers before a game against the Washington Commanders at MetLife Stadium on Sunday. Credit: /Lee S. Weissman
It’s a fair question: Why did the Jets put Aaron Rodgers on the active roster on Dec. 20 when they knew he wasn’t going to play, which forced them to cut fullback Nick Bawden?
Rodgers’ answer: Wasn’t me.
“I assumed I was going to go on IR [injured reserve],” Rodgers said on Tuesday during his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” on ESPN. “I asked to be put on IR. 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. 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.”
Jets coach Robert Saleh confirmed later Tuesday that he and general manager Joe Douglas decided to activate Rodgers so he could keep practicing with the club. Rodgers would not have been allowed to practice with the team under NFL rules had he not been activated.
“That was Joe and I,” Saleh said. “[Rodgers] expressed concern about taking up someone’s roster spot and all that stuff. Like I told you guys, we had roster flexibility, just like we told him. We had the ability to do it, so we did it.”
Saleh said Rodgers’ concern about taking someone else’s roster spot wasn’t the final consideration.
“His heart was in the right spot,” Saleh said, “but in the same time Joe and I will always do what we feel is best for the organization. Having him around is a plus. Having him on the practice field — he loves the practice field — so having him out there, his juice, his energy — shoot, even Friday leading up to the Washington game running all the scout team reps and all the smack talk with the defense and the defense got into it — it’s just a positive, a net positive for us.”
Bawden was re-signed to the practice squad on Friday and didn’t lose any pay because, as a veteran, his $895,000 contract was guaranteed.
“Yeah, that was an interesting situation,” Rodgers said. “I called Nick right away, just said, ‘I hope you know this isn’t coming from me. I asked them to put me on IR.'”
Saleh said he was aware of the controversy surrounding the decision and pushed back against the idea that Rodgers was somehow to blame.
“There’s a narrative about him from the outside world,” Saleh said. “But, internally, he’s one of the more thoughtful human beings I’ve been around by far.”
Rodgers used his McAfee platform to accuse those who criticized him for getting activated of doing so because they are still opposed to his decision to not get vaccinated against COVID-19 during the pandemic.
“ESPN is probably going to shut us off here,” Rodgers said, before adding that, in his view, pro-vaccination critics of his would say: “’ My opinion is this guy [Rodgers] is a bad guy because he just wanted to practice and took money away.’ At least then you’d know, and everybody would know at that point, [that] they have their puppet masters who are puppeteering them to say this certain thing about this guy, and they’re still upset about the fact that I believe in medical freedom. It’s the same tired narrative.”
On the football front, Rodgers repeated that he would have tried to come back from his torn Achilles to play this season if the Jets hadn’t been eliminated from the playoff race in a 30-0 loss at Miami on Dec. 17.
“If we had won against Miami, then the goal, the plan, was to take 11-on-11 reps with the first team and then see how I responded,” he said. “There’s no guarantee I would have been cleared.”
With Al Iannazzone
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
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