Florham Park – Jets coach Robert Saleh made the following statement at the beginning of his Tuesday press conference at the team’s mandatory minicamp:
“We’ve got two unexcused absences. One obviously being Haason (Reddick). I spoke to him over the weekend, appreciate the dialogue. He’s in a really good place mentally, working his tail off like we already know, he’s choosing to sit out this one unexcused. The second one is Aaron (Rodgers), we had spoke before OTAs started, he’s been very good in communication and been here the entire time. It’s unexcused, but he had an event that was very important to him which he communicated.”
Neither absence is ideal, but you could argue Reddick’s is the bigger issue.
Rodgers has been at many of the spring practices; Reddick has not.
Rodgers knows the team’s offense, and this is a new defense for Reddick.
While it would have been better for the Jets if Rodgers was at this camp, as long as he’s healthy, they should be fine on this front.
But this Reddick situation is bad, weird, unusual, whatever you want to call it.
Right now, it looks like the Jets took on another team’s contract dispute, and that’s rare in pro sports.
Reddick wanted a new deal from Philadelphia and that is one reason they traded him to the Jets, but most assumed that when the Jets made the deal, they were on the same page with the player and his agent on the contract front. If not, why make the deal?
Maybe the team thought they were on the same page on the contract front but something changed.
Honestly, who thought, when the Jets traded for Reddick on April 1, he would blow off their entire off-season program, and be engaged in a messy contract dispute with the club in June? Who saw any of this coming?
So you could argue Reddick missing minicamp is worse than Rodgers.
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