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For a quick second on Thursday, Aaron Rodgers and the Jets confirmed everybody what rejuvenation seems to be like.
After a rocky few opening collection throughout a scrimmage on the Jets’ first day of coaching camp, Rodgers fired the ball to the second-year extensive receiver Garrett Wilson on a fast out route. Wilson hauled within the go, briefly stumbled, then scampered up the sideline for a wholesome acquire, drawing cheers from his energized teammates.
It was the kind of offensive dynamism the Jets have sorely missed for years because the crew has struggled to discover a long-term reply at quarterback, the sport’s most necessary place. The addition of Brett Favre in 2008 did not ship a playoff look, and early-round draft picks after him introduced blended outcomes.
However the arrival of Rodgers, a four-time most dear participant, brings heightened expectations this season — and an unfamiliar degree of pleasure round a crew whose title has been synonymous with ineptitude for greater than a decade.
“There’s a number of positivity round right here, which I feel is an efficient factor,” Rodgers mentioned after follow.
Following a protracted negotiation, the Jets agreed to accumulate Rodgers in a commerce with the Inexperienced Bay Packers on April 24, including a degree of spectacle that has trailed the crew. The league scheduled the Jets in 5 prime time matchups this season, up from one look in 2022, together with a Week 1 contest in opposition to the Buffalo Payments on “Monday Evening Soccer.” Digicam crews from “Laborious Knocks,” the HBO documentary collection, will observe the crew all through the season, and the Jets will headline the N.F.L.’s first Black Friday sport, on Amazon.
The eye is a far cry from expectations forward of final season. The Jets received out to a shocking 6-3 begin behind a extremely ranked protection earlier than shaky quarterback play derailed newfound hopes. Zach Wilson, the No. 2 total decide in 2021, was benched in favor of the backup quarterback Mike White, and the crew went 1-7 to shut the season.
By including Rodgers, the Jets sought to expedite an organizational rebuild. The crew has nurtured younger expertise, together with the reigning offensive and defensive rookies of the yr, Garrett Wilson and cornerback Sauce Gardner.
“When you’ve gotten so many nice gamers on rookie offers, it’s fairly thrilling realizing you are able to do one thing, you’ve received a superb window,” Rodgers mentioned. “It’s not only a one-year factor the place you may be aggressive, which is enjoyable.”
As gamers reported to camp on Wednesday, some spoke of reaching the Tremendous Bowl, a lofty objective for a franchise that final made the postseason in 2010.
“Bringing a man like him into the constructing simply excites everybody generally as a result of the résumé he has, the character he’s, the man that he’s, that brings a spark to everyone,” mentioned defensive sort out Quinnen Williams, who mentioned he had already pelted Rodgers with questions on the very best defensive gamers he had ever confronted.
However even with Rodgers’s arrival, there may be cause for any optimism to be certified.
Rodgers, who turns 40 in December, is up in opposition to soccer’s age clock: Few quarterbacks — aside from Tom Brady — have excelled at that stage of their careers. And after successful back-to-back M.V.P. awards in 2020 and 2021, Rodgers had the worst season of his profession as a full-time starter, posting his second-highest interception complete and his lowest quarterback score since 2008.
Rodgers brings greater than only a Corridor of Fame résumé to the Jets. He drew criticism in 2021 for denouncing the league’s Covid-19 vaccination coverage after testing constructive for the coronavirus. Regardless of claiming earlier than the season that he had been “immunized” in opposition to the virus, Rodgers was fined for violating league Covid-19 protocols for unvaccinated gamers by attending a Halloween celebration.
The top of Rodgers’s tenure in Inexperienced Bay was additionally marred by his spats with coaches and crew administration over roster and play-calling choices, in addition to his public criticism of the Packers’ younger receivers.
Up to now, he mentioned, he’s completely happy together with his new crew.
“There’s a number of enjoyable issues which have come together with this time in my life, and I’m simply having fun with each minute of it,” he mentioned on Thursday.
For his or her half, the Jets seem to have tried to construct the crew in Rodgers’s picture. They’ve Garrett Wilson, the kind of explosive younger extensive receiver that Rodgers had complained about lacking in Inexperienced Bay. They introduced in a few of Rodgers’s associates and former Packers teammates, just like the receivers Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard and offensive lineman Billy Turner, they usually employed Nathaniel Hackett, Rodgers’s offensive coordinator from 2019 to 2021, in the identical position.
Lazard, who performed 5 seasons with Rodgers in Inexperienced Bay and signed with the Jets in March, thinks he will help a number of the crew’s youthful receivers, acknowledging that “the Aaron Rodgers offense” can current a studying curve.
“When he’s on the sphere, the entire playbook’s open at any given time,” Lazard mentioned of Rodgers. “Even throughout Day 1 of follow, he may pull a sign, do one thing we’ve by no means talked about.”
It definitely is not going to be what the Jets have been used to.
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