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Everyone around the NFL has been speculating on one offseason storyline as minicamps and OTAs get underway around the league. Where is Aaron Rodgers?
The New York Jets QB missed mandatory minicamp for an undisclosed, and unexcused, reason, though the franchise wouldn’t go further with details on his whereabouts.
NFL insider Albert Breer appears to know what the passer has been up to.
He joined the Rich Eisen Show last week to break this entire situation down.
“The best I can answer this, right now, is that he is somewhere that they could not excuse and maintain credibility with the rest of the locker room,” the Sports Illustrated reporter said when asked about Rodgers’ location.
“But it would be expected. It would not be an out-of-left-field thing for him… You guys can ‘open your mind’ so to speak, because he’s been known to open his mind sometimes into all the possibilities that might create for him.”
While Breer doesn’t come out and say it, it’s a clear insinuation that Aaron Rodgers is taking part in another ayahuasca retreat.
The signal caller has detailed his past experience with the psychoactive beverage, which he credits with allowing him to place different aspects of his life into perspective.
In this case, the preplanned retreat took precedent over Jets minicamp, and it’s now created a huge distraction for the team this offseason.
The Jets could’ve avoided the Aaron Rodgers debacle, Eisen says.
“If the team and the players are cool with it, internally, there’s no discord,” Eisen said. “And that’s all that matters to them. [The Jets] have to know where they’re residing in the New York City metropolitan area… They have to know that if they’re going to play it like this, the way it would be received.
“To know that bridge is out, and they had this much run up of roadway to get to the bridge, why they would just floor it and go right into the abyss makes no sense… Why don’t the Jets switch weeks as to when they’re holding minicamp? If they had months of heads up, why didn’t they make the week before the mandatory minicamp, when Rodgers was there?”
Had New York simply switched the weeks of minicamp and OTAs (which are optional), the entire storyline of Aaron Rodgers putting himself above the team could’ve potentially been avoided.
Instead, despite having knowledge of the preplanned absence, they stuck with the original schedule.
Head coach Robert Saleh has since received a boatload of blowback about how the situation has been handled, from the timing of the initial update to now, the manner in which the offseason camps are being run.
Things continue to get worse before they get better for New York.