• Key word: Unexcused.
Because Aaron Rodgers is Aaron Rodgers, anything of even marginal consequence he does is news in New York (and beyond). So even if the New York Jets had rubber-stamped his decision not to show for mandatory minicamp Tuesday, we’d be talking about it. But the fact that they didn’t excuse him from the three-day camp turns the temperature up on the situation.
A lot.
The next question—given that the Jets’ football operation is captained by a couple of pretty smart, rational people in coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas—why would they open Pandora’s box like this rather than just let Rodgers do whatever Rodgers is doing?
As I see it, there’s really only one plausible reason: Because excusing Rodgers for this unnamed event would create a credibility problem for the front office and coaching staff with the rest of the roster. In other words, it’d have to be something that, say, Jermaine Johnson or D.J. Reed or Ali Vera-Tucker (or whoever else) wouldn’t even try to use as a reason for being absent.
Otherwise, again, the Jets would have been better off just excusing the absence.
Now, is this a big deal in the long run? Probably not. Rodgers, as Saleh said, was an engaged attendee of the Jets’ offseason program in the two months leading up to the minicamp, and has been far more present with the Jets than he was over his last five years with the Green Bay Packers.
Still, if the Jets had excused this absence, and chalked it up as a “personal matter,” this is a one-day story. That they didn’t excuse it promises to make it a lot more than just that.
