The new unauthorized biography of Aaron Rodgers contains plenty of nuggets that have already made their way to the media. (My own copy arrived today.)
An item from Ryan Glasspiegel of the New York Post regarding a gift Jets owner Woody Johnson gave to Rodgers in early 2023 wasn’t, on the surface, as compelling as other anecdotes. Given the gift and its potential value, however, it’s fair to wonder whether the Jets stepped onto a slippery slope that ends with the team giving the player an impermissible inducement.
“He gave me some honey from the queen’s garden,” Rodgers told author Ian O’Conner. “It is a cool gift.”
Glasspiegel explains that Queen Elizabeth II, who died in 2022, was “very proud of the honey produced by Buckingham Palace beehives — so much so that she gave a jar of it to Pope Francis during their first meeting in 2014.”
So is it a problem for a team to give something like that to get a player to accept a trade there?
“Reasonable travel costs, entertainment and lodging may be part of a visit that’s covered by a club,” the league told PFT via email. “Something like this would not be an issue.”
It’s still not clear when it would be an issue. Much of it depends on the value of the gift. If it’s just a jar of honey from the Buckingham Palace store, no big deal. If it’s some special jar from the queen’s personal honey stash, it will have greater value.
Obviously, certain gifts would clearly be on the wrong side of the line (house, Ferrari, etc.). The question is where’s the line?
Here, if it was just an average-random jar of made-for-sale palace honey, no problem. Which of course makes the gift less “cool.”
It nevertheless worked. Rodgers picked the Jets. And they’re hoping that, this year, he plays longer than it takes for a bee to pollinate a small patch of petunias.