The moments have been in ample supply in North Jersey. Jets coach Robert Saleh, in fact, got two more just last week.
The first one came Monday, at one of the team’s final OTA practices before breaking for the summer. On this one, after collecting the snap, Aaron Rodgers stared down the middle of the defense in a seven-on-seven drill, quickly moved his head left, then pivoted and reset too quickly for anyone on the other side to react. As the defense tried, he released a go ball down the right sideline for Malik Taylor, who spent parts of the last four seasons in Green Bay.
“When he let it go, I was like, ,” Saleh says, grinning ear to ear, sitting at a table in the Jets’ lunchroom Friday morning. “And then, the ball just kept floating and floating and floating, and it hit the guy in stride. I was like, .It was unbelievable.”
The second one came in the same session, and while it may not have been as physically impressive an act from the quarterback, it did so much more to illustrate, once again, for the coaches on hand just they now have playing the most position in all of sports.
“The second one, it’s because you see it in games, you just never see it way,” Saleh continues. “Me, personally, I’ve never been around a quarterback like that. We’ve had some good quarterbacks—Russell [Wilson], Jimmy [Garoppolo], Matt Schaub. This is different, and not to speak poorly on them. So he throws a ball to C.J. Uzomah. And I was like, And he says, .”
And sure enough, when Saleh went back to look at the throw, he saw what Rodgers did—creating an opportunity because he saw the location of the defender’s eyes. Rodgers moved Uzomah into an open space underneath by putting the ball there, knowing the guy covering his tight end would be a tick behind him, because he didn’t have vision on the quarterback.
Rodgers’s ability to draw these kinds of gasps from even the most veteran figures in pro football is, of course, a big reason why the Jets went to the lengths they did to land the future Hall of Famer. But those are hardly the only signs the team has gotten over the last two months of just what they acquired in the Packers legend.
On Friday, the Jets wrapped up their first offseason program with him. This particular Monday marks seven weeks since the blockbuster trade with Green Bay was completed. And in the time since, there’s been sign after sign of just how the bar has been raised.
“It couldn’t have gone any better,” Saleh said, on the final day of the program, flashing another smile before repeating himself. “Couldn’t have gone better.”
The hard part, of course, comes next. But for the Jets, so far, so good.
