Aaron Rodgers to Jets: What are you willing to sacrifice to win Super Bowl?
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) calls out a play to his teammates during the first half of an NFL preseason football game against the New York Giants, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2023, in East Rutherford, N.J. Credit: AP/Frank Franklin II
Aaron Rodgers is ready for his 19th NFL season and the challenge of helping the Jets return to the playoffs and maybe even the Super Bowl.
Rodgers is confident that his teammates are ready, too, but he has a very important question for them:
How much are they willing to sacrifice to win a Super Bowl?
“Every season there’s a question you have to ask a team, whether you say it out loud or it’s innately understood,” Rodgers told a small group of reporters last week. “It’s what do you want to sacrifice to have the season you want to have?”
Rodgers played 18 seasons for Green Bay, which certainly doesn’t have the nightlife New York has. He noted you can “find trouble anywhere” but that this area has a lot more “opportunities for really fun things.” Rodgers alluded to other things that could take their attention away.
The message from the one-time Super Bowl champ: The Jets must lock in on their mission and never lose sight of it.
Rodgers recommends that players spend more time with the playbook, more time studying and FaceTiming each other and talking football.
He truly believes that if this group comes together, the Jets can return to the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1968 season.
“With your free time, what are you willing to sacrifice in order to get this thing the way we want to go?” Rodgers said. “That’s a question we all got to ask ourselves this year. There’s a lot of goals right there in front of us that are actually attainable, legitimately attainable.”
Other important factors, according to Rodgers, will be how the Jets handle success and deal with adversity.
Everything has been positive up to now. The Jets didn’t suffer any major injuries in training camp. They should be at full strength when they host Buffalo in Week 1 on Sept. 11.
Rodgers isn’t worried about the offense jelling, but he laid out some legitimate early questions.
How much can the Jets get from Breece Hall and Dalvin Cook? Neither practiced much. How many snaps can Randall Cobb play? Can tackles Mekhi Becton and Duane Brown “play a whole game?” Both are coming back from injuries.
Rodgers has no doubt that the offense will be prepared. He challenges his teammates every day to make sure they are.
He quizzes them about the offense, about his hand signals, goes over cadence. He is a master at getting the defense to jump offside, and he’s not happy when the offense has a false start. To that end, he doesn’t believe in having a 20-play walk-through in which they go on a single count every snap. He mixes it up, adding double counts, quick counts and dummy counts to keep them alert and ready for anything.
Rodgers doesn’t want robots on the field with him.
“We need guys who can think quickly, listen and then react at the same time,” Rodgers said. “They can’t just turn their minds off.”
Coaches who say ‘just turn your brain off” irritate Rodgers.
“That’s just not how I play football,” he said. “I don’t want my guys to play football like that. The smartest players are the best players. I need my guys to be able to think in real time and then react quickly and not turn their brain off. That’s just not the offense we play.”
Rodgers has everyone’s attention.
Many Jets have gushed about his leadership and how easily he relates to everyone in the building. But he said he will “jump a guy’s [expletive] and get on people” when necessary.
In last week’s episode of “Hard Knocks,” Rodgers was shown shouting expletives because of poor execution, but h
e promises to be more patient than in Green Bay because everything is new for many players.
Receiver Allen Lazard, a former Packer, said Rodgers’ style works for him.
“I think that hard confrontational discipline is all that you need,” Lazard said. “I know it was for me. He was cussing me out or giving me a dirty look after I messed up. That’s what motivated me to not do that again because I didn’t want to disappoint him. Also, I didn’t want to disappoint my teammates and more so myself and what I was trying to do.
“I think it was just a great reminder of ‘just be on your [expletive].’”
Rodgers couldn’t have said it better himself.
Al Iannazzone covers the Jets for Newsday after spending nearly two decades on the NBA beat with Knicks and Nets.
