Most teams have one or more reporters to whom they will leak self-serving explanations, whenever something controversial happens. For the Jets, one of those reporters seems to be, in my opinion, Connor Hughes of SNY.
It was Hughes who, for example, pushed the team’s narrative (albeit somewhat factually inaccurate) after Colleen Wolfe of NFL Network reported/suggested/whatever that someone witnessed an awkward and heated conversation between Jets owner Woody Johnson and Jets coach Robert Saleh at the league meetings in March. It’s Hughes who has interjected the notion that the Jets had an understanding with defensive end Haason Reddick before trading for him, and that they thought Reddick was on board with it.
And it’s Hughes who is providing a detailed explanation for the Aaron Rodgers absence from mandatory minicamp. Here’s his nothing-to-see-here post on X from this morning: “Aaron Rodgers planned this trip when he was still rehabbing. The Jets have known about it from the moment there was an overlap with the release of the minicamp schedule. Rodgers is ‘unexcused’ because you can’t excuse a trip, but not a contract dispute (Haason Reddick). Semantics, but there’s no unrest inside the building. The Jets don’t think it’s a big deal, not sure why the world is reacting differently. Rodgers missing these two days (after being at every voluntary workout the last two years) will have zero impact on what the [Jets]/Rodgers accomplish this coming season.”
The Jets might think this makes things better. It doesn’t. The version that was spoon-fed to Hughes proves what a failure of P.R. and strategic planning this was.
First, if it was known for months that Rodgers was planning a trip that might conflict with mandatory minicamp, why didn’t anyone breathe a word of it before the first day of mandatory minicamp? They should have looked at the calendar and picked the date on which Hughes or someone else would have been told that Rodgers won’t be present for mandatory minicamp.
Second, WHY DIDN’T THEY DO MANDATORY MINICAMP LAST WEEK? Sorry to scream at your eyeballs, but the Jets could have/should have worked with Rodgers to ensure that they scheduled the mandatory minicamp when he could attend. If, in the end, it was impossible to do that, that’s when they should have leaked the story that Rodgers wouldn’t be present for mandatory minicamp.
Third, players with other teams are routinely excused from mandatory minicamps. Three Packers have been excused this week. The Seahawks have excused their punter, who is getting married. Several Jaguars are excused. The Steelers excused running back Najee Harris on Tuesday.
I went down that CBA rabbit hole last night. While discipline imposed by a given team on its players must be uniform, discipline in this context isn’t even relevant unless the absence is unexcused. And if other teams are seeing fit to excuse the absence of plenty of other players not named Aaron Rodgers, the Jets easily could have excused their franchise quarterback.
This could be an example of overzealous lawyering, where someone with a J.D. laid out the well, actually argument that excusing Rodgers could make it harder to fine future players who skip mandatory minicamp. And that’s why there are moments when the executives need to thank the lawyers for their input — and then ignore it entirely.
Ultimately, the situation proves yet again one of my favorite sayings, coined by Big Cat of Pardon My Take: “Dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things.”
In this case, the Jets dysfunctioned up the whole thing.
Given that Rodgers has previously chastised the organization for the “chickenshit” habit of the Jets leaking negative information about players to the media, it’ll be very interesting to see what he has to say about this one.
