Appearing recently on The Herd with Colin Cowherd, a show that has made a cottage industry out of bashing Aaron Rodgers, with the host setting the tone, former New England Patriots WR Julian Edelman went after Jets QB Aaron Rodgers for missing the team’s recent mandatory minicamp.
“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.”
But Rodgers attended the Jets’ OTAs this spring, so why is it okay to miss some OTAs as a QB, if you attend the mandatory minicamp? Ideally, you want the starting QB to attend all these events. The NFL is a QB-driven league.
Not saying Rodgers’ minicamp absence was okay, but his attendance for the Jets’ spring work before that was excellent. He got a ton of work in during the spring, and the way the minicamp practices are structured, they are essentially the same as OTAs.
Missing two OTA practices, or missing two minicamp practices, basically has the same impact. All these practices look the same in the spring – no tackling and little contact.
And yeah, you can “guarantee” some players wondered where Rodgers was while the camp was going on. Of course they wondered, but that doesn’t mean their attitude changed toward him. That doesn’t mean they are mad at him.
Edelman bashing Rodgers on Cowherd’s show is a good business decision.
It makes the host happy.
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