For much of Tuesday morning, the NFL’s widescreen football conversation was unfolding in Eagan, Minnesota. The league’s owners’ meetings were riddled with questions as to whether Kickoff was being targeted for elimination from the game; When will the Washington Commanders finally be sold; and how long commissioner Roger Goodell will continue his duties as the highest-paid executive in sports history.
It was typical big picture material that would get relegated to meetings. And to clear it out of the front end of the news cycle, Aaron Rodgers showing up to New York Jets practice without a helmet. Just like that, jets panic — which deserves a WebMD page at this point — gripped every corner of the social media space.
Why isn’t Rodgers taking passing reps? Is he limping? What happened? is it serious?
If you want an accurate snapshot of what Rodgers’ tenure with the Jets is going to be like, this was it. Along with the excitement of last month’s trade from the Green Bay Packers, it was a dose of white-knuckle reality that showed what it feels like to have so much leverage on the 39-year-old quarterback. The good times may be as cheering for Jets fans as they’ve been hoping for, but the inevitable bumps along the road will be clouded by worry. And whatever it takes to kick it into gear Rodgers is showing virtually no element of a problem. He even had what was as simple as what a team source described as “nothing” and a “minor strain in his calf.”
“I turned my calf in a little pre-practice conditioning and decided to have a vet’s day,” Rodgers told reporters after practice.
Asked what he was doing when he got hurt, Rodgers replied, “I don’t know. Just running, I guess.”
The answer was largely relevant as reporters observed Rodgers stretching his calf after an exercise that involved performing lunges while holding a medicine ball – a warmup routine that Rodgers noted he would perform throughout his career. was unlike anything done during After the injury, he remained on the field, which is usually a sign that it was not serious enough to require immediate treatment.
The response from a large portion of the Jets fan base, however, was hardly so muted. What followed was an avalanche of Zach Wilson memes, Twitteratis yelling about the Jets being cursed and some predictable laments about New York surrendering next season’s first-round draft pick if Rodgers is only 65 in 2023. % Plays offensive snaps.
Of course, none of this was that absurd. Wilson is just one away from Rodgers’ injury from being the No. 1 quarterback for the Jets again. It’s as inevitable as it is horrifying for parts of the fan base. But while we’re talking about Wilson, it’s worth mentioning that he reportedly had a good workout when he took Rodgers’ rep on Tuesday. As for the curse, well, there has been no shortage of well-laid out plans for the Jets over the past several decades. So that emotional dark cloud is at least understandable.
But perhaps the most important point in the totality of fan reaction is that 65% offensive snap threshold, which is always the first thing that comes to mind when Rodgers suffers any kind of injury. If there’s one point of frustration in a Rodgers trade that’s bound to continually resurface in the coming months, the low bar for the Packers to kick off a first-round pick is once Rodgers reaches that benchmark. If he doesn’t play enough snaps, Green Bay only gets a second rounder from the Jets. The risk associated with that asset is as real as it gets, and the Jets need to take every precaution possible to avoid poaching Rodgers. And that may involve them doing lower-body warmups their 39-year-old joints aren’t accustomed to. God forbid Rodgers gets a knee injury while jumping with that medicine ball. Half of New Jersey may have descended upon the Florham Park facility with pitch forks and torches. How much of the fan base has been invested in this whole thing.
That buy-in is also going to be an attractive take on the Rodgers experience in New York over the next several months (or years). Even among the many NFL fan bases that pass through wild moods about a team or a particular player, New York has few rivals for the peaks and valleys, let alone the breakneck pace at which the heights can sink into the depths. . It’s not so much a roller coaster as it is a shuttle launch into space, followed by a descent back to Earth.
Never more than 2023, when the team logo can also be a seatbelt. The Jets signed up for this. This is what the vast majority of the fan base was demanding. And when Rodgers was married to the Jets, we expected it to be pretty much the same. A news-generating brainstorm that’s capable of affecting the rest of the league’s important business… on a Tuesday in May, no less.
Welcome to Preview. Wait until the full blown circus arrives at training camp.
