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The more you go over Aaron Rodgers’ lengthy interview with ESPN on Tuesday, the more nuggets you find.
He made it clear, more than once, that the Jets’ culture needs to improve and feels he was on the way to helping them fix the culture in the spring and summer before his injury in Week 1. He felt, with his resume, players were embracing his message.
“I think, because I what I accomplished and how long I’ve been around, there is instant clout I can come in with,” said Rodgers, a four-time NFL MVP. “My voice allows a little bit of a stronger tone from the start when you walk in there and guys respect what I’ve done in the league. So I have a platform to speak into certain things.”
When he first arrived for his first OTA practices of the spring, he eased into his attempt to fix things.
“I tried, in the beginning, to be an observer, be a consultant, to take the experience I have from 18 years in the league in a great organization and see what I like about what we are doing, what maybe we can adjust a little bit, and where I fit in and how I can use my voice to steer this thing in the direction we want to,” Rodgers said.
But getting injured in the opener, and then being away from the team rehabbing his Achilles for close to three months, left him dismayed he couldn’t effect more change.
“It’s been frustrating for sure to not be out there to watch us struggling at times to know a lot stuff I’m about, we tried to build, just couldn’t get pushed into standard practice,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers feels with more time with his teammates, the things he was trying to instill, could have become second nature.
“I kind of goes into autopilot some when you are doing the same thing over and over again and they are seeing me go about my business, it becomes part of the routine,” Rodgers said.
And the QB feels that some went back to their old way of doing things without him around.
“And without me here, It becomes natural for things to fall to what they have been before,” Rodgers said.
Powerful stuff.
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