Aaron Rodgers rips Jets and coach Aaron Glenn, describes 'strange' meeting before his release
Aaron Rodgers, left, and Jets head coach Aaron Glenn. Credit: Jim McIsaac; Corey Sipkin
Aaron Rodgers’ ill-fated first game with the Jets apparently lasted longer than the 20-second meeting he described that ended his tenure with the team.
In his first public comments since he was told in February that the Jets would be releasing him and going in a different direction at quarterback, Rodgers on Thursday ripped the Jets over his final in-person meeting with the team, describing it as awkwardly brief, “shocking” and lacking “an ample amount of respect” while noting that much of his two-year tenure with the team was “a debacle.”
“It was strange,” he said in an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” where he is a regular guest but hadn’t joined the broadcast since the end of the regular season. “There was no me pleading like ‘please have me on the team.’ I don’t want any part of that. It was already a debacle in some cases.”
“I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised based on some of the things I saw over the two years,” he added later in the conversation. “I am disappointed it didn’t work out better on the field, but it didn’t damper anything. I just said, now I have a chance to talk to other teams and see what is out there and also time to contemplate my own future.”
Rodgers went on to say that he continues to respect and have good relationships with several members of the Jets’ organization, including Christopher Johnson, the team’s vice chairman and brother of owner Woody Johnson. Rodgers did not mention Woody Johnson at any point in the nearly 45-minute interview on Thursday.
“There are a lot of great dudes there,” Rodgers said. “But there are obviously things that need to get fixed over there.”
The Jets declined to comment on Rodgers’ description of the meeting with new coach Aaron Glenn and new general manager Darren Mougey.
Glenn and Mougey were asked at the NFL Combine in February about the decision to release Rodgers.
“We just felt at the end of the day, it was the best thing for the Jets moving forward, just going in a different direction at the quarterback position,” Mougey said. “That was a decision we made and look forward to kind of moving past that and into this next process here with free agency and the draft.”
According to Rodgers, he flew from his home in California to New Jersey “on my own dime” in February for what he expected to be a long meeting about his potential future with the Jets and, at the very least, a debrief on the past two seasons.
“The confusing thing to me, the strange thing, was when I went out there, I meet with the coach . . . we start talking, he runs out of the room,” Rodgers said. “I’m like ‘that’s kinda strange.’ Then he comes back with the GM and I’m like ‘all right.’ So we sit down in the office and I think we’re going to have this long conversation, I’ve flown across the country, and 20 seconds in, [Glenn] goes, I mean literally I am talking to the GM about something and he leans to the edge of his seat and goes, ‘So, do you want to play football?’ ”
Rodgers said he was interested.
“And he said, ‘We’re going in a different direction at quarterback,’ ” Rodgers said.
“I was kind of shocked,” Rodgers continued. “Not shocked because I didn’t think that was a possibility. Listen, they want to move on, that’s totally fine. But shocked because I just flew across the country and you could have told me this on the phone if we weren’t going to even have a conversation . . . I said, ‘Huh?’ He goes: ‘We just want to know how you want it released, the messaging.’ I said, verbatim, ‘I don’t give a [expletive] about the message.’
“And I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘I don’t want to be up in front of the room saying something and have guys looking back at you.’ And I said, ‘What does that even mean? Are you assuming I would be in the back of the room during a team meeting undermining what you are saying?’ I said, ‘You don’t know me.’ And he said, ‘You don’t know me.’ And then I said, ‘Exactly. Which is why I flew across the country to have a face-to-face meeting with you to talk about my experience with the Jets and hear your vision for the team.’ ”
Rodgers said he was in the building for roughly 45 minutes, much of that time spent saying goodbye to the staffers in the equipment room, training room and other departments.
Rodgers won five games over two years and missed almost the entire 2023 season with a Achilles tear suffered in the opener.
“I wasn’t surprised that they want to move on, but why would you not want to pick my brain?” he said. “I’m there to talk to you about the team and about things I think can get better and things that are good, players who have leadership possibilities. Anything. I mean I’ve been in the league for 20 years. Any type of conversation. But there was none. That was strange.”
The result, of course, was Rodgers’ first taste of free agency in his Hall of Fame career.
Rodgers referenced issues in his personal life that have prevented him from committing to any football future yet and said he has no timeline for making a decision. He said he met with several teams, most of them having been reported over the past several months. One of them was the Giants, who have since signed Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston. Rodgers seemed intrigued by the possibility of playing for the Giants.
“I did talk to Brian Daboll and had a great conversation with him, really enjoyed him a lot,” Rodgers said. “I think he is a lot of fun to talk to and has a beautiful football mind . . . He’s a really bright football mind.”
At this point, though, Rodgers’ options appear to be limited to either the Steelers or retirement.
As for the Jets, Rodgers said he left that final meeting looking ahead, not backward.
“Hey, that’s the closing of that chapter,” he said of his thoughts immediately after it. “There are so many beautiful things about the two years that I had there. Obviously most of them were off the field. But I wasn’t upset about it . . . I am thankful for my time with the Jets.”
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.
