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Jets owner Woody Johnson was asked if he was concerned about losing Aaron Rodgers after the speculation that the Jets QB might be Robert Kennedy Jr.’s vice presidential candidate in November’s election. Kennedy is running as an independent.
“He is getting back to football 100 percent,” Johnson told Fox News. “He never left football. That was a momentary distraction—maybe like going in the dark room or whatever. But he’s back 100 percent. Great leader. I tell the receivers: ‘You count to 10, hold your hands up and look around, the ball will be there.'”
Not sure Aaron Rodgers considered his darkness retreat last year a distraction. He takes his holistic, spiritual approach to life very seriously, and just went on another Ayahuasca retreat in Costa Rica in March.
And plus, his darkness retreat in Oregon last off-season was before he was traded to the Jets, so how could it be a distraction to a team he wasn’t even on yet? Plus when he came out of four days of reflective darkness, he decided he wanted to keep playing football. He wasn’t sure when he entered.
So the darkness retreat was certainly not a distraction for the Jets, but a blessing.
As for the last part of the quote, not sure I get that from a football standpoint:
“I tell the receivers: ‘You count to 10, hold your hands up and look around, the ball will be there.”
How many NFL plays last 10 seconds?
Any team that can pass protect for 10 seconds has a hell of a line.
Is Johnson helping the Jets by doing so many interviews?
Most owners rarely speak. Usually just once a year, if that much.
Most let their GM and head coach speak about football matters. That’s why they get the big bucks and makes the messaging a little easier.
A perfect example was when Johnson said to ESPN at the Super Bowl – “We need a backup quarterback. We didn’t have one last year.”
Considering they were going to try and trade their backup QB from last year, Zach Wilson, how was that quote helpful to their GM Joe Douglas?
Just because a reporter comes up to you at the Super Bowl on the red carpet at the NFL Honors, doesn’t mean you have to do a lengthy interview. Perhaps just keep walking and enjoy that wonderful event.
And considering your head coach promised Wilson the team would trade him after the year, how was it helpful to say at the owner’s meeting that the team might keep the player if they can’t trade him?
“If we don’t trade him, we’re going to keep him,” Johnson said.
According to Wilson’s hometown paper, the Deseret News, Robert Saleh told the player he would trade him.
So you might keep him on the roster against his will after the coach said he would grant his wish for a change of scenery after you hurt his trade value by saying he didn’t exist?
Does anybody have the guts to have an honest talk, and maybe tell him to pull back on his public comments on the football operation and leave that to the GM and coach?
Why can’t Ira or Christopher have that talk with him?
Say something like:
“Woody, sit back and enjoy the hell out of your team with your great family, and let your GM and head coach handle the messaging, like most professional sports teams.”
And we can assure you that Rodgers doesn’t consider darkness retreats a “distraction.”
He takes that stuff very seriously.
April 10, 2024
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