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The New York Jets kicked off their OTA program on Monday, and in attendance was newly-acquired and future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers. And apparently, that’s a huge deal.
The Jets — who own the longest postseason drought in the National Football League, having not made the playoffs since 2010 — are down so bad these days that their franchise signal-caller showing up to the first day of practice is apparently a huge deal.
Mike Florio over at ProFootballTalk wrote an entire article and did an entire TV segment about it.
“It’s good for him, his teammates, and his new team. While Rodgers knows the offense being implemented by new coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, Rodgers doesn’t know all of his new teammates — and all of his new teammates don’t know him. They need to be around each other. They need to become comfortable with each other,” Florio says.
“The Jets players, many of whom were in grade school when Rodgers burst onto the scene as MVP of Super Bowl XLV, are starstruck by Rodgers. They need to get past that. Rodgers needs to help them do it. There’s only one way it happens. They have to get used to him.”
While Florio has a point, the fact remains that the Jets didn’t trade for Rodgers for him to make a symbolically solid first impression in May — it’s to win games in December and January, two months that haven’t seen the Jets play relevant football in a decade.
Based on their current betting odds, the bookmakers seem to think that Rodgers will have that sort of franchise-altering impact on the franchise, as the Jets currently have the seventh-shortest odds to win next season’s Super Bowl, trailing the Kansas City Chiefs, Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, Buffalo Bills, Cincinnati Bengals, and Dallas Cowboys.
Rodgers will kick off his New York Jets career in a Monday Night Football matchup against the Buffalo Bills on September 11.