The Jets had three first-round draft picks in 2022, and they’re committing to all three of them at least through 2026.
Jets General Manager Darren Mougey said today that the team will exercise fifth-year options on 2022 fourth overall pick Sauce Gardner, 10th overall pick Garrett Wilson and 26th overall pick Jermaine Johnson II.
That means Gardner gets a guaranteed base salary of $20.1 million in 2026, Wilson gets a guaranteed $16.8 million and Johnson gets a guaranteed $13.4 million.
That’s a lot to guarantee three players, but the Jets are lacking in talent, and hitting on their three first-round picks in 2022 was one of the few things they’ve done right in the personnel department in recent years. So they don’t want to let any of those three players go.
The Jets will likely try to negotiate long-term contract extensions with Gardner, Wilson and Johnson, but even without any additional negotiations, they’ll all be with the Jets for two more years.
The draft is the biggest event on the NFL calendar this week, but it’s not the only business being conducted around the league.
Offseason programs have gotten underway for the seven teams that hired new head coaches and the other 25 teams will be up and running by Tuesday. Some of the teams with new coaches will also be moving into another stage of their work.
The Bears, Jaguars, Raiders, and Jets will all open three day minicamps on Monday. The minicamps are voluntary and teams with new head coaches must run them before the draft. The Patriots will also hold a minicamp this week, but it will start on Tuesday.
All five teams opened their offseason work a couple of weeks ago and the minicamps will allow them to start the transition from doing only meetings and conditioning work to more of the on-field work that they hope will prepare them for better results in 2025.
Three days ago, former Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers unloaded regarding the team’s decision to offload the future Hall of Famer. Since then, the Jets haven’t uttered a peep.
Not a word, directly or indirectly. On any of the various subjects Rodgers addressed or claims he made — including that the Jets have been a “debacle” and that new coach Aaron Glenn went “rogue” in abruptly telling Rodgers after he flew cross country “on my own dime” that he’d be getting no more dollars from the Jets.
Some would regard silence as confirmation of Rodgers’s claims. Judged against the standard established by past Jets regimes, that would likely be true. The best sign that the team is changing under Glenn and G.M. Darren Mougey is that they exercised restraint in the face of Rodgers’s grievances.
Nothing said in response to Rodgers will change a thing. It won’t help the team win games in 2025, or beyond. It would only invite more noise from Rodgers, who now has a clear interest in seeing the Jets do worse without him than last year’s 5-12 record with him. (Any former teammates who choose to keep in contact with Rodgers should keep that in mind when he criticizes Glenn or Mougey.)
The Jets gain nothing from getting into a pissing contest with someone who always finds a way to paint himself as the victim. They gain everything by continuing to implement their plan to move on.
This week, Glenn and Mougey will be available to reporters during the draft. Don’t be surprised if they shoot down any questions about Rodgers by saying they’ll only be talking about the players who are currently on the team.
If they choose to say anything, however, we suggest something along the lines of what 60 Minutes said after Rodgers bristled at the suggestion in a profile that he’s overly sensitive: “It was fair and accurate and it was obvious we got it right when we reported that he tends to be overly sensitive.”
Rodgers’s pettiness on the back end of being released by the Jets makes it obvious they got it right to clear out someone who would undermine Glenn’s team-first approach. And it should be a warning to anyone who might get it wrong by becoming Rodgers’s next future ex-team.
When he finally broke his silence on Thursday, Aaron Rodgers said plenty. And there’s still plenty to say about what he said.
Let’s focus on his decision to fly to New Jersey for a meeting with new Jets coach Aaron Glenn. When he left California for his cross-country on-my-own-dime trek, what did he really expect?
He’d been needling owner Woody Johnson, for weeks. Rodgers had said plenty of things about the organization’s culture, especially as it relates to “chickenshit” leaks and Johnson’s failure to give public support to the coach and G.M.
Rodgers is also smart enough (or at least he should be) to know that, with Johnson hiring a Bill Parcells disciple to be the head coach, things were going to be very different. No more tiptoeing around a delicate genius. It’s football and it’s team and the coach always outranks the quarterback, and every other player.
So either Rodgers went there to provoke an inevitable showdown (about which he could complain later) or to persuade them to give him a chance. And they sort of did. When Glenn asked if he wants to play football, he didn’t say, “Hell yes!” He said, “Yeah, I’m interested.” (Which sounds eerily similar to, “Yeah, I’ve been immunized.”)
Wrong answer, Aaron. They already had concerns. They already had reservations. They already were ambivalent at best about keeping the player whose acquisition became the first domino in the chain of events that got coach Robert Saleh and G.M. Joe Douglas fired.
Rodgers bristled at the idea that the Jets didn’t want him to exert his influence in a way that made the new regime look bad. And, by mounting his McAfee bully pulpit to vent about the Jets, it’s exactly what he did. He called the Jets “already a debacle, in some cases.” So why in the hell was he “interested” in playing there?
He knew, or should have known, what they were going to say. He could have asked them before he got on the plane whether he was wasting his time.
If he’s as smart as he claims to be, he knew what was happening. And it’s fair to wonder whether he went there specifically to let it happen, so that he could then paint himself as a victim after the fact.
On Thursday, Rodgers proved the Jets right in their decision to tell him they were moving on. And he gave any other interested team a clear warning: He’s gonna get you next.
Previously, my position on Aaron Rodgers was simple: (1) the Vikings should say no; and (2) the Steelers should say yes.
I’ve revised my opinion. The Steelers should run away.
Aaron Rodgers currently isn’t good enough to justify The Aaron Rodgers Experience. We were reminded of it on Thursday, when he settled scores and aired grievances and pretended not to want the attention naturally flowing from weeks of deliberate silence.
Rodgers put the Jets on blast for bringing him across the country “on my own dime” (have you considered GoFundMe?) to tell him they were moving on. He said they could have called. And, of course, if they’d called to say they were moving on, Rodgers would have been miffed that they didn’t break the news in a face-to-face meeting.
Rodgers also called the Jets a “debacle” and complained about the lack of respect the team exhibited to him. Which is relevant to the Steelers because, eventually, he’d be a former member of that team, too. And if the Steelers don’t perform well with Rodgers at quarterback, he’ll be inclined to look for someone else to blame. And to potentially criticize the Steelers after he’s gone.
Then there’s the weekly bully pulpit with Pat McAfee, where the host and his cohorts will give Rodgers a very wide berth to say whatever he wants. Which is actually a good thing, because it gives us a glimpse into his thoughts and opinions that we otherwise wouldn’t have.
Rodgers loves to complain about any and all actual or perceived slights or indignities. He holds a grudge (to borrow a Seinfeld line) like Khomeini. Shit, Rodgers is still whining about COVID, demanding an apology even though he’s the one who blatantly lied about his vaccination status.
Why would the Steelers want Rodgers if Rodgers is going to be appearing every Tuesday on ESPN and saying whatever he wants to say, on whatever topic he wants to speak? They had that with Ben Roethlisberger, who used to do a local radio segment on 93.7 The Fan until he realized (possibly at the suggestion of the team) that it was causing more problems than it was worth.
That’s the key, for any player. Do the pros outweigh the cons? We know what the cons are when it comes to Rodgers. We currently don’t know the pros. He’s 41, and Father Time is undefeated.
Yes, he’s better than any other option they currently have on the roster. The Steelers should try to find some better options. Draft someone, trade someone, find a free agent. Anything. Rodgers, I’ve concluded, will be more trouble than he’s worth. The positives won’t sufficiently counter the negatives.
We’ll accept Rodgers’s explanation that he has something going on in his personal life that keeps him from making an “all-in” commitment to any team. So why did he visit the Steelers if he wasn’t ready to sign a contract? He could have waited until it was time to commit, if he decided to do so.
The Steelers should make the decision for him. They can do better. Maybe not when it comes to throwing skills, but definitely when it comes to leadership, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness.
