Jets have strong ties to San Francisco, a place where they hope to start their season off right
Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers drops back to throw a pass during a practice with the Carolina Panthers Thursday, Aug. 15, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. Credit: AP/Matt Kelley
There are sure to be plenty of emotions swirling around inside Aaron Rodgers when he takes the field on Monday night for the restart of his tenure with the Jets. He hasn’t completed an NFL game since January 2023, hasn’t played at an MVP level in almost three years, has broken the 40th birthday barrier since his last appearance and is returning from an Achilles injury that might have ended the career of someone less driven to return.
The space under his helmet must at times seem like open auditions for Pixar’s “Inside Out 3.”
“He is human,” coach Robert Saleh reminded us of his quarterback’s emotional readiness last week. “No matter how accomplished you are, you still have moments where you have to deal with things mentally, and I’m sure he’s dealing with that.”
The one layer to all of this that may have been at the forefront of Rodgers’ head space just a few years ago but now has been demoted to an afterthought? This game is being played in the Bay Area against the 49ers, the team he grew up rooting for in Northern California. The team that spurned and embarrassed him on draft night two decades ago. The team he’s held a grudge against for the majority of his career.
No more of that, though. Rodgers has moved past it. He’s won with his longevity.
“I mean, it’s all different people,” he said of the structure of the organization whose diss once stoked the steam engine that drove him to a Hall of Fame resume. “I’ve outlasted a lot of the people over there . . . I played against [current 49ers general manager] John Lynch. That’s how old I am.”
Rodgers may be over it, but this game still is a homecoming for him and many others with the Jets. For them, the San Francisco area is where their NFL journeys either began or truly took shape. The Jets’ roots run as deep as the redwoods are tall. And now, on Monday, it’s where this season will kick off, with the Jets attempting to reach an echelon of NFL respect that the 49ers have enjoyed the last few years as perennial contenders.
“It’s a part of home for me,” said Jets defensive lineman Solomon Thomas, a product of Stanford and a former 49ers draft pick. “I went to school in that city. Yeah, I’m, I’m excited to get back. I get to play against my one of my best friends, Christian McCaffrey. I get to play in the place I played. I get to play my 100th NFL game there. Every game’s the same, but I’m super-excited for this one. Super-excited.”
Another player who undoubtedly will get all the feels from this San Francisco treat is defensive end Takk McKinley, whose career was derailed as a first-round bust but who bounced around and made this Jets team as a minicamp veteran after a strong preseason.
The Oakland native was so focused on just getting back in the league this summer that he didn’t even notice the Jets’ opener was going to be played so close to where he grew up. When it finally did dawn on him, he saw the symmetry to it.
“Being out of football for a year and a half, my family members, the ones that care about me, they also were out of it, you know what I’m saying?” he asked. “So for them to be in the stands and just see me out there on the field again, it’ll mean a lot.”
Saleh wouldn’t allow himself to go that far with his enthusiasm. “I’ve been in that stadium before,” he pooh-poohed. He too has deep roots with the 49ers. It’s the team he served as a defensive coordinator from 2017-20, the one he helped bring to a Super Bowl that the 49ers lost to Kansas City (not this last one, the one before that).
“I think it is cool,” Saleh said of his fingerprints still being part of the 49ers’ philosophy, so much so that when San Francisco tight end George Kittle started watching film on the Jets, he noted the similarities to the defense he faced all training camp. “A lot of those guys were just pups when we got there. [Nick] Bosa was a rookie, Fred [Warner] was a nickel that we turned into a mike linebacker . . . [Dre] Greenlaw, I know he’s probably not playing, but he’s another guy that grew so much. It’s cool because we did it together and I’m standing here because of those guys.”
More than what Saleh left is what he took. San Francisco is where he learned the blueprint for success that he brought with him when he was hired by the Jets. The San Fran Plan.
While those specs haven’t always been as true as they could have been, it’s where he hopes to relaunch this latest — and possibly his last — attempt to build the project the way he has always envisioned it.
The way he saw the 49ers do it.
The way he hopes to show them the Jets can do it now.
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.
