You get the feeling that if Aaron Rodgers asked Jets owner Woody Johnson to move the team back to Hofstra, the moving vans would be parked outside the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center pronto.
Or if Rodgers asked Joe Douglas to sign Pat McAfee as the new punter, the GM would be thanking Thomas Morstead for his time.
Or if he asked Douglas to sign slot receiver Randall Cobb …
Oh wait, Cobb on Wednesday became the latest member of the Green-and-White Bay Jets.
It was wise and predictable for Rodgers to publicly decree at his introductory press conference last week that he is not a savior, or the savior.
Except everything the organization has done, from hiring Nathaniel Hackett, Allen Lazard and Cobb, to every mountain it has moved, and everything Jets players have done, from openly wooing the four-time MVP to Sauce Gardner burning a viral cheesehead to what they were saying Wednesday, mandates Rodgers is the savior, and must be.
There haven’t been many honeymoons like this one:
See Rodgers smiling on the MSG scoreboard at a Rangers playoff game, hear the crowd go wild.
See Rodgers smiling the next day at a Knicks playoff game, hear the crowd go wild.
See Rodgers seated next to Gardner for Game 2 of the Knicks playoff series, hear the crowd go wild.
“I didn’t know he was that funny,” Sauce said.
Up next: Rodgers throwing out a first pitch at a Mets game at Citi Field and at a Yankees game at the Stadium.
Expectations are this high now. He probably won’t have to worry that his first interception will elicit boos from a single long-suffering Jets fan.
Rodgers has taken head coach Robert Saleh’s “positive vibes only” mantra to a whole other level.
“Wow! That’s Aaron Rodgers commanding our huddle! Aaron Rodgers throwing us passes! Aaron Rodgers challenging Sauce!”
“I ain’t gonna lie to you, I was kind of starstruck at first,” linebacker Quincy Williams said, “because we warm up right next to each other. I was just like, ‘Hold on, Coach. Let me just take a little minute to take this in and watch a few throws, seeing him in the green.’ Just took that in a little bit and was like, ‘All right, now let’s get to work.’
“So we can get him more opportunities to throw the ball.”
The younger Jets speak with the kind of reverence the younger Buccaneers spoke with about Tom Brady when he left the Patriots and energized, inspired and united the building en route to an NFC Championship game win over Rodgers at Lambeau Field and a Super Bowl LV win over the Chiefs.
“I always just catch myself just watching him, watch how smooth he looks, how he makes it look effortless,” Gardner said.
And there was Garrett Wilson lobbying for an invite from Rodgers to accompany him to a dinner at Carbone (“He covered the check,” Gardner said) and Knicks game.
“This is something 20 years from now, 30 years from now, I’ll tell my kids, ‘I played with Aaron Rodgers,’ ” Wilson said.
The narrative that Rodgers might buckle under the New York spotlight has so far been intercepted. Rodgers has embraced New York every bit as much as New York has embraced him. He has come off as comfortable in his own skin, perhaps more than he has ever been.
Over dinner, Gardner revealed that Rodgers told him: “I’m built for this.”
If in fact he truly is, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, Garrett Wilson might even be able to tell his kids: “I won a Super Bowl with Aaron Rodgers.”
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