Content available exclusively for subscribers
On Super Bowl Sunday, Fox’s Jay Glazer made a blockbuster announcement:
“Aaron Rodgers flew back to New Jersey last week to meet with the Jets about his future with the team, only to be told that the team was moving on from him.”
This info probably came from Rodgers or his somebody in his camp.
Because look how Glazer phrased it – “Rodgers flew back . . . only to be told.”
The way this tweet is phrased, it makes it seem like Rodgers did the right thing flying all the across the country from Los Angeles to meet with the Jets new brass, “only” to be told they were “moving on.”
That makes Rodgers look sympathetic here. He made the effort to fly five hours across the country to meet with them “only to be told” they were moving on.
Another clue that this came from Rodgers or his camp was how the Sunday news cycle evolved related to this story.
In the morning top NFL insiders Adams Schefter and Ian Rapoport both reported that a decision had not been made yet.
But then early in the afternoon, at 1:40 pm Glazer tweeted that a decision was made and they told him to his face they are moving on.
So, to me, this is Rodgers, or somebody in his camp, calling BS on those earlier reports.
If you were Rodgers, and your heard the top two NFL insiders report on Sunday morning that no decision had been made, when you were reportedly told to your face a few days early that they were moving on, how would you react?
And by the way, I’m not criticizing Schefter or Rapoport for their reports Sunday morning. They have good sources and that is what they were told.
Whoever that source was is going to pay a price. Why would somebody tell two of the nation’s top NFL insiders that the team was still deliberating on the QB’s future when their minds were already made up, according to Glazer?
You don’t mess around with Schefter and Rapoport giving them bad info. This quid pro quo stuff cuts both ways. These two guys had to be livid at whoever that source was. Would love to have been a fly on the wall when those two called that source after Glazer’s report made them look bad, especially the Schefter call.
The Jets finally responded to Glazer’s report today, announcing their intention to move on from Rodgers.
They were clearly working on how to spin it, similar to the Mike LaFleur situation I mentioned the other day. LaFleur was clearly gone on the Monday after the 2022 season, but the two reporters who reported that were gaslit for two days while they figured out how to spin it to make it look like he wasn’t fired.
So this was probably a case of buying time figuring out how to spin it just right, like the LaFleur situation.
With Glazer announcing the Jets told Rodgers they are moving on, it begs the question, what did Aaron Glenn say in his two interviews with the Jets about this job related to Rodgers?
The Athletic’s Dianna Russini said on his podcast
“Many (Jets HC/GM) candidates, almost every single one of them, who would have moved on from Rodgers,” Russini said.
I’d love for Dianna to find out for us what Glenn said about Rodgers in the meetings. She seems to have the best info on what was said in these meetings. She said Steelers OC Arthur Smith, who interviewed with the Jets for the HC job, said in the interview, he would get rid of Rodgers.
So what did Glenn say, and if he did say he wanted to move on, what was up with all the rhetoric about thinking it over the last few weeks?
But remember, this cuts both ways, it’s quite possible Rodgers wanted out for some time.
His relationship with Jets owner Woody Johnson is poor, and how many QBs in the NFL, right now, are at loggerheads with the team owner? That is an unusual dynamic and perhaps untenable.
So even with Glazer’s announcement that the Jets are moving on from Rodgers, you could argue, emotionally he has moved on from them and wanted out, even before that meeting.
February 13, 2025
Premium will return by 9:30 pm (or sooner) on Friday.
