Aaron Rodgers has begun his recovery from a torn Achilles, and his involvement with the Jets for the rest of the season remains up in the air.
Rodgers may take the year to focus on rehabbing, or contemplating his NFL future, or he could stay with the team and help Zach Wilson evolve into the quarterback the Jets hope he can become.
BT says it needs to be the latter, or Rodgers’ consistent public dedication to the organization will lose a lot of weight.
“Everything he said over the summer, from the moment he came in, he’s all in, ‘I love Zach, I support Zach, I want Zach to be the guy when I’m gone,’” BT said. “Once the swelling is gone, once the surgery is over, I expect Aaron Rodgers to be at the Jets facility every meeting, still a part of the team, on game day, on crutches, sitting next to Zach and helping Zach Wilson.
“I don’t want to see Aaron Rodgers stories…I don’t need that. But it shouldn’t be over to the point where he’s invisible. Otherwise, I don’t want to straddle a line of being unfair, but I’m gonna say it: Kind of everything Rodgers espoused from the moment he walked in the building, and tried to change the identity of the Jets, to me, it’s lost. It seems very baseless and hollow. You’re hurt, you’re not dead.”
BT says having Rodgers around will be a big boost to Wilson and the Jets offense as a whole, and while he can no longer help on the field, if he was serious about lifting this franchise to a new level, he will do whatever he can to help from the sidelines.
“[Nathaniel] Hackett’s his boy, Zach is young and impressionable, and he and Zach have this great relationship,” BT said. “You don’t think it would serve the Jets and behoove the growth of Zach Wilson to have Rodgers there?”
