With six games remaining in the regular season and the possibility of Aaron Rodgers returning if the Jets are in playoff contention, one would think the Jets are under a lot of pressure to give their prized quarterback a chance to turn the season around.
Rather, the team is simply delighted to have him back in the building.
“I don’t think there is any pressure on it,” Solomon Thomas told The Washington Post about the added pressure to win for Rodgers to return to the field. “Of course, we want to win. We want to make the playoffs, and we want Aaron to return whenever he’s ready. There’s a lot of excitement about the prospect of getting him back. I’m just glad to see him back in the building. You can’t beat the presence of a 19-year Hall of Fame player in the building.”
Rodgers worked out at the Jets’ facility in Florham Park on Friday.
He went through the motions of stretching and warming up during the rainy afternoon.
Images from Getty Images
He could be seen across the field throwing routine 30-yard passes to his teammates.
Quincy Williams has already felt Rodgers’ presence in practice and has taken nothing but positives from it, particularly as an extra set of eyes on the defense.
“It’s fantastic to have him. “The most important thing is that he has a lot of energy,” Williams told The Washington Post. “In practice today, just having his eye on certain keys and stuff like that, it’s very huge to have him back and being able to do that in live time.”
Since returning to practice this week after suffering a torn Achilles in Week 1 against the Bills, the quarterback has not ruled anything out in terms of a return date.
Nonetheless, in order for Rodgers to return, the team must provide an incentive for him to do so. And the 4-7 Jets, who have the NFL’s second-worst yards per game (260.2), face an uphill battle to improve production.
The Jets will play the Falcons, Texans, Dolphins, Commanders, Browns, and Patriots in their next six games. They have 19 days to either activate Rodgers or bench him for the season.
“I think we just want to win because having him back is such a blessing and a beautiful thing,” Tanzel Smart told The Washington Post. “If he comes back, [we want to] just have those six wins under our belt, so we can make sure he has something to come back to.”
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