Aaron Rodgers Arrives

Edition #379

Good morning ☀️

It’s Draft Day!

It still doesn’t feel real and regardless of your feelings on the compensation, Aaron Rodgers is a Jet. Just for fun I went and had a look at the record for the Jets single season passing yard leaders, and added Aaron Rodgers's career to it. If this doesn’t outline just how monumental this deal is, I’m not sure what will.

The fact that Joe Namath threw for over 4000 yards in a 14-game season at a time when the majority of the league ran the ball is ridiculous, and it’s the only thing keeping Rodgers from a clean sweep here.

Even when you consider his "down-year" last year, Rodgers's 3,695 passing yards would have ranked as the 5th highest in Jets history, and his 26 touchdowns would have ranked for 3rd highest in a single season by a Jets QB (tied).

Rodgers arrived in New York yesterday to meet with the media, and it’s certainly going to take some time for the below to look right.

💰 We got the figures on the Connor McGovern contract and it’s an absolute steal. He’s actually being paid like a backup, which leads me to believe the Jets may absolutely still be in the mix for someone like John Michael Schmitz if he falls to the second. If it’s not JMS, I do fully expect the Jets to draft a center as mentioned yesterday, I just don’t know how high. Connor’s deal will pay him $1.915M this year with $1.25M guaranteed and a $750,000 signing bonus, that’s it.

🧀 Former Packers and Jets QB Brett Favre spoke to ESPN on the Rodgers deal and he was positive about his former protegee - “Aaron will do great!!!!" Favre said in a text message to ESPN's Ed Werder. "He will handle the transition as well as anyone. [He's a] very smart and instinctive person, on and off the field. In other words, you're not going to catch him by surprise very often. And I think [he's] the best at making everyone around him better. I would rather not bet at all than best against him."

🏠 Hall of Fame Jets RB Curtis Martin also gave his thoughts saying: "I'm looking forward to seeing what he brings to the Jets. He gives the Jets a real chance.”

🔴⚪ Ohio State tackle Paris Johnson was speaking to the media yesterday and he confirmed that he’d spoken to Jets owner Woody Johnson in the pre-draft process. Owners don’t tend to meet with a lot of draft prospects so we can read into that as much as we like. When asked if he’d be excited to land in New York, he said yes. You’ll remember that he spoke about state taxes and wanting to avoid a team who resides in a state with high tax rates earlier this off-season.

✂️ The Jets released running back Ty Johnson with a non-football injury designation, just weeks after he was signed to a one-year deal. First and foremost I hope Ty Johnson is OK and is back playing football this season.

💲 The Jets also converted $4.32M of DL John Franklin-Myers's base salary into a signing bonus, creating $3.5M in 2023 salary cap space according to Field Yates. I expect there to be more movement as we clear space for Aaron Rodgers's contract.

🟣 Daniel Jeremiah released his latest mock draft and he had the Jets landing the best and most technically ready tackle in the draft in Skoronski:

🔴 CBS Sports are reporting that the Jets would be open to taking JSN if he were to fall to them at #15. JSN is extremely talented so it’s not surprising to hear that they’d be open to it, but I don’t think they’ll get the chance. My theory is the Packers wanted that #13 pick to leapfrog the Patriots and take a WR, JSN is the only receiver worthy of a first-round pick in my book (expect more to be taken).

Aaron Rodgers arriving in New York has revitalized the fanbase, you only have to spend 5 minutes online to see that. "It's gonna be an exciting journey, just to be a part of that is amazing. To be a part of getting this team back to where it deserves would be legendary. That's what I think what we all want to be about, is legendary things." Aarons said to the collective media at his introductory conference.