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He has nothing to lose saying this stuff.
He’s not friends with Aaron Rodgers, and he’s not getting anything (information) from him, so you might as well go after him for missing the minicamp. It’s an easy target.
Julian Edelman went off on Rodgers on Colin Cowherd’s show last Friday.
People on these shows pick and choose who they go after.
They dive in when the water is safe.
It’s like all these NBA analysts, a lot on ESPN, destroying Luka Doncic recently, but never laying a glove on LeBron James, ever, because they never want to cross the Lakers star or his agent.
When it comes to who talking heads trash and don’t trash, there is a cost-benefit analysis.
Rodgers is an easy target for most NFL analysts because he pretty much doesn’t play ball with any of them.
He’s low-hanging fruit, so Edelman went in for the kill.
“I guarantee there’s four of five guys, six, seven, eight, nine guys in that locker room sitting there like, ‘Where’s he at?’” Edelman said. “Now, if they start 4-0, no one’s gonna care; but this is the NFL. I think it’s a bad look for your leader, for whatever reason, to go and miss an unexcused absence.
“I mean, I was with Tom Brady in his 25th year, 23rd year, and he started missing OTAs here and there; but he was still there. Never missed a mandatory minicamp. I just thought it was a bad look.”
Maybe it was a bad look, but we still don’t know what he was doing, so it’s hard to completely judge his absence.
But honestly, why is Brady missing a bunch of OTAs, but attending the mandatory minicamp so much better than Rodgers attending all the OTAs this off-season, but missing a two-day minicamp? OTA practices and minicamp practices are basically the same. Rodgers got a lot of work in this spring with his teammates.
And yeah, some players were perhaps wondering where he was at, but I don’t think it’s going to impact their opinion of him. By all accounts, they still love him. They know he’s the key to them getting to the promised land.
“God forbid the New York Jets start 1-3 at the beginning of the season, which they start with the [San Francisco] Niners, Tennessee [Titans], [New England] Patriots and someone else regardless. We all know the Patriots are no good, but that defense is still the same defense, and that’s who Aaron goes against.
“If they go 1-3, this is going to be such a big distraction for that locker room. Because everyone is going to be talking about it – this is New York City. It’s the media capital of the world.”
First of all, the New York media market isn’t that tough anymore, aside from the back page headline writers.
If they go 1-3 against that weak schedule, aside from the San Francisco game, they have big, big problems that probably go deeper than Rodgers missing two days of practice in the spring. That would be flat-out embarrassing.
But to me, this quote, really caught my attention.
“We all know the Patriots are no good, but that defense is still the same defense, and that’s who Aaron goes against,” Edelman said.
Their “defense is still the same defense” with first-time NFL defensive coordinator Demarcus Covington running their defense instead of Bill Belichick, one of the greatest defensive coordinators of all time?
That is wild man.
But Edelman had nothing to lose trashing Rodgers.
It’s become a cottage industry on sports talking head shows, and he’s an easy target.
Because he’s not buddies with any of these guys, aside from Pat McAfee and A.J. Hawk, so these analysts ripping him aren’t losing any info or access. They don’t have any to start with.
June 25, 2024
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