As Hard Knocks openings go, Aaron Rodgers delivered an all-time classic for HBO’s 20th season of scenes from an NFL training camp. The New York Jets quarterback struts on to the field and mutters: “Gonna give you some good shit today.” It is trademark Rodgers: breezy, off-hand and ultra-confident. It is at this precise moment that Jets fans collectively respond: “We got ourselves a quarterback.” If they were smiling after the montage when Rodgers says their single Lombardi is looking lonely in the team’s trophy cabinet, one can only imagine their ecstatic expression after this brash assurance.
Well, that is unless they have never seen this hyperbolic roadshow before. This set piece along with every (and there are a lot) montage of Rodgers throwing perfect spiral after perfect spiral provides the archetypal opening gambit of Hard Knocks. The attempt to dupe us into mass Jets fever: that they are the best team in the league, never mind the numerous roadblocks on the way to February football. Of course Rodgers looks great throwing the ball because he is Aaron Rodgers, a Super Bowl winner and four-time NFL MVP.
But he is 40 and has not been to a Super Bowl in more than a decade. If the Packers couldn’t get over the line with him in his prime then it feels a little optimistic to think he can carry the Jets after his difficult final season with Green Bay. Then there is the juxtaposition of our smiling assassin from episode one with his spiky, difficult streak before preseason began. Rodgers had no interest in being part of Hard Knocks last month: “They forced it down our throats and we’ve got to deal with it” was his frank assessment. Well done to HBO, then, for changing his mind. But the sense persists that producers have had to pad up with kid gloves to make sure their star gives them exactly what he promises at the outset.
We soon see in the second episode that who Rodgers is going to be in New York will depend on his team-mates. The joking stops as soon as he starts feeling pressure from the pass rushers in training camp. Blows are traded after every rep in practice – a Hard Knocks staple – such is the dominance of the Jets’ defensive unit over their counterparts on the offensive line. Here lies a finer yard-stick than QB play by which to measure the team’s potential: whether the offensive line can produce stable pass protection.
Cue another Hard Knocks classic: the redemption arc. The offensive line plunges to even greater depths in a joint practice with the Carolina Panthers and the Jets’ head coach, Robert Saleh, does not hold back in his criticism. The Panthers run Rodgers ragged and after the O-line draw the quarterback’s considerable ire, Saleh hangs the struggling unit out to dry in a team meeting: “It was our first opportunity to change the stink that’s been on this organization on the offensive side of the ball. You can have a Hall of Fame quarterback, you can have two $10m receivers, you can have a reigning offensive rookie of the year, you can have all kinds of skill in the running back room, none of it fucking matters until the big boys up front change who we are.” Ouch.
Not to worry. Our offensive underdogs quickly rebound with a strong display as they help backup quarterback Zach Wilson and the Jets to a 27-0 preseason win over the Panthers.
“That was us,” Saleh says with an air of celebration that ignores the obvious problem that both teams were almost solely constituted of backups. It is more difficult to get carried away with this arc than our overarching savior story but the Jets’ offensive second-string had a clear opportunity to show their worth and did so while making a case for first-team snaps. In Saleh’s grand listicle of the offense’s talents he reveals by omission that there are jobs to be had blocking for Rodgers, be they free agents or hungry outliers. Mekhi Becton is one such lineman who could benefit from the opportunity. He plays a role in the success over the Panthers and if he can stay healthy there is surely a chance to regain a starting spot after falling from a 2020 first-round pick to a roster also-ran. What is less apparent are the machinations behind Rodgers’ lunch invite for Becton but the cameras need something to film for next week.
The star – and the real reason to be excited for the new Jets season – is Quinnen Williams. The defensive lineman wreaks havoc on every rep on the practice field. Then rookie Will McDonald explodes from the same position against the Panthers in the shutout victory: Williams’s talent is apparently rubbing off on his teammates and doing so quickly. The edge is leading this wrecking crew just as Saleh must have hoped after the Jets gave the charismatic Williams a four-year $96m contract extension in the offseason. If the backups are this good – and being led by talent like Williams and defensive rookie of the year Sauce Gardner – then any struggles on offense could be masked, much like last season’s run to 7-4 with Wilson at quarterback.
While Saleh highlights a functional offensive line as a crucial change for New York, it is hard to overstate the importance of having an elite quarterback in the building. The Jets face Buffalo, Dallas, New England, Kansas City, Denver and Philadelphia in their opening six games, a seriously formidable set of fixtures. If they stumble in that opening stretch then the team will need Rodgers to deliver when it matters – and killer lines to camera won’t suffice.
