Aaron Rodgers was sitting at his locker a couple of weeks before the New York Jets’ Sept. 11 season opener, in no rush after a shower as others hurried to a mandatory team meeting. On his way out, defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers made a crack to Rodgers about taking his time. They both laughed.
Rodgers misses those moments now, chopping it up with the Jets’ mercurial group of defensive linemen, lockers positioned all around him. Wednesday, quarterbacks Tim Boyle and Trevor Siemian were locked into an intense game of Ping-Pong as Zach Wilson spoke to a large group of reporters a few feet away, the three players comprising the quarterback room with Rodgers thousands of miles away in Malibu, Calif. At one point, Siemian hit the ball too far and it rolled toward Rodgers’ locker, mostly vacant aside from the scooter leaned up against it, logoed with his No. 8 and a jet plane. It’s waiting for him, to help him get around the facility, whenever he returns.
For now, he’s in the throes of rehab for his Achilles injury, intent on making history and returning to play football just a few months after his September surgery. On weekends, he flies to New Jersey to join his teammates for games at MetLife Stadium. He watches from the sideline, with a headset, and spends most of the game offering advice and words of encouragement to his teammates and coaches. He’s basically become a part-time member of the coaching staff, which is what his role will be until he’s ready to play again.
The Jets organization, from ownership to coaches to the locker room, has dreams of Rodgers making a miraculous return and playing again this season as the team makes a playoff push. Some in the organization know that might not be realistic.
“I just don’t see how it’s remotely possible, that’s where I’m at,” said one high-ranking Jets source, speaking on the condition of anonymity so he is not seen as unsupportive of the quarterback. “I’m not counting it out, but it would be insane if it happened.”
In the meantime, Rodgers is still trying to make an impact, in the same way he did when games didn’t matter yet and he stuck around for the Jets’ offseason program, which he rarely did with the Packers. Since his trade to the Jets in April, Rodgers has helped to change the demeanor of an organization riddled with negativity through years of disappointment. His message is still resonating — especially when he’s there on Sundays, wearing a headset, playing his part and encouraging his teammates to stay positive, even in moments of peril.
The Jets have won three games in a row heading into Monday night’s game against the Chargers — Rodgers will be on the headset again for that one — and are 4-3 despite losing him four plays into the season. Maybe he’s not playing, but he’s still helping them win in other ways.
Aaron Rodgers was on the sideline with Robert Saleh when the Jets played the Eagles on Oct. 15. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
Last week, the Jets trailed by 3 points with 24 seconds left against a Giants team that had accumulated negative passing yards. Rodgers, an active voice on the headset with offensive coaches in recent weeks, was offering thoughts and suggestions throughout the game. Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett specifically took his advice on multiple occasions, according to multiple Jets coaches, but the offense mostly struggled. The Jets were 1 of 13 on third down in regulation, a stat indicative of a season-long problem on third down and the red zone, where the Jets have the worst conversion rate in the NFL.
But after Graham Gano missed a field goal and gave the Jets the chance to march down the field, Rodgers pulled Wilson and some other offensive players aside and told them: Clear your minds, stay positive — and go win this game.
And so they did: After two big Wilson throws to Garrett Wilson and Allen Lazard and a timely spike with 1 second left, Greg Zuerlein kicked a field goal to tie it, and then the Jets won in overtime. Some Jets players in the locker room said it felt like Wilson turned into Rodgers for 24 seconds.
“Aaron obviously is a big manifester, in making sure that your mind, No. 1, is sharp,” Boyle said. “And you can’t have a successful play or a successful game without first and foremost believing in it.”
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Todd Downing runs the quarterback meetings, and he likes to have fun. The Jets passing game coordinator does it to break up the monotony of the season, to keep things fresh, and it serves a purpose beyond just having a good time. He incorporates the Jets’ game plan and film review into popular game shows like “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” and “Jeopardy,” with help from Jets instructional designer John Vieira. There are fun questions mixed in, too, including some about movies.
In late September, before the Week 3 Patriots game, Zach Wilson made it to the final question to “win” a million dollars. It was about a movie, and Wilson was stumped, so he pulled a lifeline: Phone a friend. That was Rodgers, who happened to be watching the very movie that was the answer to the question: “The Shawshank Redemption.”
Rodgers occasionally will FaceTime into quarterback meetings to check in, and he often texts with Wilson and Boyle, though his focus during the week has mostly been on rehab and his weekly appearances on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
“It’s a brotherhood,” Downing said. “We wouldn’t have it any other way than to FaceTime Aaron in there and to make sure everyone is involved. Those FaceTimes aren’t necessarily: Hey, what are you thinking on this? What would you tell me on this? It’s more like we miss our brother and want him to be a part of the meeting. Those two (Wilson and Rodgers) have a cool big brother, little brother relationship going on, and it’s been fun to watch.”
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Wilson credits Rodgers with helping to build back his confidence. He followed him everywhere, studied his process and picked his brain. Wilson wasn’t supposed to play this season, though, and losing Rodgers meant the Jets were losing his presence in meetings, too. Boyle and Siemian, the latter who signed with the Jets on Sept. 26, have tried to fill that void to help Wilson. Boyle was teammates with Rodgers in Green Bay.
“The quality of life in our quarterback room is high,” Boyle said. “We all get along really well. We all have a very good relationship, we have good rapport, there’s no sensitivity. We’re able to have open, honest, blunt conversations, which I think is refreshing.”
Boyle acknowledged losing Rodgers from the room was a “tough blow,” though.
“We’re excited to get Aaron back here. Hopefully soon, just to have him around, bounce some things off him,” Boyle said. “But we love our quarterback room. I love coming to work every day.”
Siemian — with 30 career starts, including one in 2019 with the Jets — has helped to fill some of that knowledge gap with Rodgers gone. Together, Boyle and Siemian know their No. 1 job: Be there for Zach.
“I always think the quarterback room has gotta be your foxhole,” Siemian said, “because there’s nobody else that knows what you’re going through or knows what the day-to-day is like, the week-to-week, the game day. I think it’s critically important that you have a couple guys in your room that you can lean on.”
Aaron Rodgers, Zach Wilson and Tim Boyle at training camp in July. (Mike Stobe / Getty Images)
Wilson has leveled out after a bad Week 3 loss to the Patriots that had many (including Joe Namath) calling for his head, though it has been far from perfect. He’s thrown only five touchdowns in seven games, after all, and is completing only 58.3 percent of his passes. But Wilson is still leaning on Rodgers, even if he’s not around for practice.
“I wouldn’t say he’s not here,” safeties coach Marquand Manuel said before the Patriots game. “We still work with that … positive spirit that he brought to a team that hasn’t had it in a while.”
A week later, Rodgers was there — to the surprise of just about everyone.
The Jets are one of many NFL teams that stays at a hotel the night before home games. On Saturday, the Jets have a team meeting, and various players will often stand up and speak to the offense, the defense or the group as a whole. On Sept. 30, they had a surprise speaker: Rodgers.
“He just came into the team room like Batman, honestly,” Lazard said.
The crowd went wild. And his message to the team resonated: Stick together. Stay positive. And stop pointing fingers.
That last part was a reference to the week before, when cameras caught some Jets offensive players, including running back Michael Carter and Garrett Wilson, getting animated with coaches. That bothered Rodgers. On McAfee’s show that week, he told them to “grow up” and intimated that those sorts of things wouldn’t happen if he were there.
He was right. There have been no sideline issues since then, with Rodgers in person for three of the Jets’ last four games. He was cleared to travel for the Jets’ game against the Chiefs on Oct. 1, just a few weeks after surgery, and Rodgers walked around the field on crutches before watching from a press box.
On Oct. 10, Jets vice chairman Christopher Johnson expressed confidence that Rodgers might return this season, telling The Athletic: “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Before the Eagles game on Oct. 15, head coach Robert Saleh asked Rodgers if he wanted to watch the game from the sideline or from the box — Rodgers said sideline, and he wanted a headset, too. Saleh happily obliged. Before that game, Rodgers was already off crutches and walking around normally, without a boot, and even threw a few passes. Before the Giants game, he incorporated dropbacks into the routine. Rodgers has admitted there’s still a long way to go in his rehab, but his teammates watch in amazement.
“He might be an alien,” offensive tackle Mekhi Becton said, adding that seeing Rodgers on the field has been “extra motivation, for sure … you know he’s doing everything to get back here with us.”
