Robert Saleh wishes he already had Aaron Rodgers on the Jets’ roster. Rodgers, though, remains on the Packers’ roster, with the Jets and Packers not yet having agreed upon a trade to send the quarterback to New York.
Saleh said Monday he wishes the trade had happened “three years ago.”
But he still expects the trade to happen.
“You guys know me. I’m a positive thinker,” Saleh said. “I’m sure eventually they’ll figure something out.”
Rodgers wants to play for the Jets, and the Jets want Rodgers to play for them. The Packers don’t want Rodgers anymore, but they want more for Rodgers in trade than the Jets are willing to give for a player the Packers no longer want.
So, the impasse continues.
“You’d always like to [have it done already],” Saleh said. “It takes two to tango, so it’s just a process. We respect the process and whenever it gets done, it’ll get it done.”
Saleh is not concerned about the timing of adding a starting quarterback -- “whoever that might be.” That’s because the quarterback the Jets are adding already knows the offensive coordinator, Nathaniel Hackett, who worked with Rodgers in Green Bay, and Rodgers has a familiarity with the system.
“There’s great rapport with the coordinator. There’s really no urgency,” Saleh said. “The quarterback is going to understand the system. The quarterback knows it. It’s just a matter of just refining skills and doing all that stuff. So, there’s no hurry on our end.”
Whether intended or not, it was a message to the Packers: You are in a bigger hurry than we are. We are willing to wait it out to get the deal we want.
Thus, the standoff continues and could for awhile. Unless, of course, Roger Goodell locks Woody Johnson and Mark Murphy in a room at the NFL owners’ meetings in Phoenix and says, “Get it done.”
