On Tuesday, Jets coach Robert Saleh surprised everyone (except Aaron Rodgers) by saying that Rodgers was an “inexcused” absence for the mandatory minicamp. Saleh wasn’t asked about the “very important event” that caused Rodgers to choose something else over a mandatory workday.
Saleh returned to the podium on Wednesday. It took a little while to get to the elephant not in the room. When Saleh was finally asked about Rodgers, he got three questions.
Have you talked to Aaron yesterday or today? “No, I haven’t.”
Tyrod Taylor (who ran the offense in Rodgers’s absence) only found out about the absence yesterday. Why is that? “It’s a one-on-one conversation [with Rodgers], it’s not something the team needed to know about.”
Did Aaron know the team was going to call his absence unexcused? “Aaron and I are on the exact same page. There’s no issue between Aaron or his teammates for that matter. So, like I said, we addressed it yesterday. It’s more of an issue for everyone outside the building than it is inside, and that’s about it.” (Surely, some of the players in the locker room who didn’t know Rodgers wouldn’t be showing up for mandatory minicamp until yesterday had to be wondering what the hell was going on.)
Amazingly, Saleh wasn’t asked the most relevant question of them all. Where is Rodgers?
If he decided that something else was more important than showing up for two mandatory days of work, what is it? Maybe it’s objectively plausible for him to choose not working over working. Or maybe it isn’t.
It’s impossible to make that assessment if the Jets won’t say where he is — and if the supposedly bare-knuckled Big Apple media horde won’t ask the simplest and most obvious question of them all.
Where is Aaron?
