SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A few illustrations before I get to the Aaron Rodgers “Hard Knocks” Jets:
The Michael Jordan Bulls were a traveling circus show wherever they went, and they never blinked, never let the noise distract or deter them.
Joe Torre and Derek Jeter navigated the most recent Yankees dynasty through the New York storms under the great expectations of The Boss and a spoiled fan base. Two decades earlier, the Bronx Zoo Yankees thrived on chaos and controversy, and won back-to-back World Series championships.
LeBron James took his greatness to South Beach and rode the supersonic hype train to the top of the NBA.
The 1985 Bears, with all those crazy swaggerlicious characters, Super Bowl Shuffled their way to the championship.
The Troy Aikman-Emmitt Smith-Michael Irvin Cowboys won three Super Bowls in four years … the first two under Jimmy Johnson and the last one under Barry Switzer.
The Tom Brady-Bill Belichick Patriots were able to relentlessly do their job and built a six-ring dynasty in this free-agency era.
The Warriors won four NBA titles in eight seasons.
So with great players, great leadership, and health and luck, it can be done.
You also have the 1992 Best Team Money Can Buy Mets, or the 2023 Steve Cohen Mets, among the most high-profile cautionary tales across any and every professional sport.
It used to be that fatigue made cowards of them all, now it can be the unrelenting glare of the social-media microscope. Or, specifically related to the NFL, rampant parity.
There are more than 55 reasons why the Jets are still desperately seeking their first Super Bowl championship since Jan. 12, 1969.
Many of them have plenty to do with the quarterbacks who followed Broadway Joe Namath.
Aaron Rodgers is here to change that narrative.
He has many tasks as he begins this new exhilarating chapter in his life — and so far so good:
Rodgers has energized and electrified and galvanized the entire organization, just as Tom Brady did when he joined Tampa Bay in 2020.
Now, Rodgers didn’t want “Hard Knocks” any more than general manager Joe Douglas or head coach Robert Saleh wanted “Hard Knocks.” But he recognizes that he is the star of the show and is rolling with the punches. He understands that all eyes, inside and outside the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center, are fixated on him.
For the Jets to ascend on their Flight ’23, they will need more than no-look darts and tight-window touchdown passes from Rodgers. They will need him to serve as a human shield against the incessant drumbeat of noise that will reverberate around them.
“He is in the locker room, he is with those guys, and he does protect those guys,” Saleh said, “but at the same time, he understands the other lens, which is a very unique trait in a player to understand both sides of the coaches and players equation.”
Then Saleh took his team to practice at Gibbs Stadium on the Wofford College campus Thursday after thunderstorms forced the Panthers to abandon the scheduled joint practice and break camp.
“You’re always trying to look for guys to get comfortable,” Saleh said. “You know when you get praised a lot and you have a starting spot, and you’re getting paid, you’re just trying to see if they just kind of level off, and you’re just trying to feel that as our duty to keep the main thing the main thing and make sure guys are always pushing the envelope.
“I feel like we’ve got a group of guys who are made of the right stuff. … We’ve been very deliberate in the character that we’ve brought into this locker room. I don’t think these guys look at anything. I think they still view themselves as a team that hasn’t done anything. We haven’t been to the playoffs [ahem, since the 2010 season], we won seven games last year, so all the external noise is all coming from the fans, which is great. We’ve earned it, because we’ve done a lot of really good things, but we haven’t earned it because we haven’t won anything.”
Rodgers has been through the spotlight wars before, and he knows when to tell everyone to “relax.” Saleh, entering his third season as head coach is not as versed in how to “ignore the noise” as Belichick has been. Saleh can talk about crows and eagles, but he’ll need Rodgers to fly alongside him.
That’s because “Hard Knocks” will be a distant memory once the regular-season battles begin. It is easy for Saleh to talk about embracing the target on the Jets’ backs now, but when the bullets start flying: Now what?
Rodgers is the pilot. Saleh is fortunate he has Rodgers’ public support and the respect of the locker room and the ego necessary enough to accept a co-pilot role.
“He’s been through all the highs and lows, winning seasons, losing seasons, world championships [actually, one championship], he’s been part of teams that have started slow but finished fast and vice versa,” Saleh said.
Rodgers is the one assigned to make everyone around him better. His mandate is to show the younger Jets how to win. Before he tries to do that on the field on any given Sunday, he will need to do it from Monday to Saturday off the field. If he fails there, there will be many hard knocks, unrelated to any TV show.
Saviors aren’t expected to fail.
