Jets, Rodgers Ready For Real Football

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Aaron Rodgers has said a bunch of things over the years that must have made NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell cringe. Several of such comments pertained to subjects outside the game and bordered on the lunatic fringe. Those could be waved off.

But when the Jets quarterback recently talked about the NFL preseason, it was both subversive to league mantra and 100% the truth.

“The preseason isn’t real football,” Rodgers said.

That must not have gone over well with defenders of the shield who force their season ticket customers to purchase these affairs at full prices.

Rodgers elaborated that these exhibitions have only been rendered more meaningless over the years with the rising trend in joint practices, where teams can get starters reps in a more controlled environment. In the early days of his 20-year career, Rodgers would build up by going from a couple of series in the preseason opener to playing into the third quarter in Week 3. With mid-week joint practices, who then is going to risk any regular—not just the star QB—getting hurt in a preseason game a few days later?

Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh certainly wasn’t. Only a handful of Jets non-kicking starters participated in the “games.” with Rodgers among the vast majority who didn’t see a single snap. Though opinion shows on TV/radio/podcasts need things to talk about, I don’t view Saleh’s plan as controversial in any way.

As for their preparedness for the regular season, the Jets actually endured a more arduous training camp than in Saleh’s previous three years—the team counts the reps at every practice, including the joint ones with Washington, Carolina, and the Giants in advance of the weekend exhibitions. Like I mentioned in my last post, I’d rather have seen those joint practices televised.

Rodgers seemed grateful for the extra work, as he is attempting a return to form (or some facsimile thereof) following surgery to repair a ruptured Achilles suffered in last season’s opener. Per reports, he has passed every training camp mobility test save for getting hit.

And given this franchise’s cursed history with preseason injuries to quarterbacks, having Rodgers avoid those hits can easily be defended.

With so few quality quarterbacks seeing action, the league as a whole was on track to register its lowest-scoring preseason in decades. Through the first two weeks, the under bets went 26-7.

As such, I take absolutely nothing from Gang Green’s 3-0 official August mark. Plenty of established pundits see New York as a playoff contender at minimum, but we really can’t tell until the games count starting on September 9 at San Francisco. I don’t see how the organization conducted the preseason will be any sort of factor.

It’s easy to get caught up in the intriguing stories from the Jets preseason. New York’s defense, which allowed a total of 35 points over the three games, was chock full of them, from cornerback Qwan’tez Stiggers, a CFL import, to defensive lineman Takk McKinley, a 2017 first-round pick plucked off the street (though I did find it hilarious when McKinley beat Giants tackle Evan Neal, a highly-touted 2022 first-round pick, for a sack so bad it looked like Neal never got out of his stance.) Both players impressed enough to deserve spots at the bottom of New York’s 53-man roster.

Beyond that, though, don’t buy anything from the preseason. Like Rodgers said, it’s not real.