Aaron Rodgers and Garrett Wilson have engaged in pointed conversation twice at New York Jets training camp as quarterback and receiver work hard to get on the same page headed into the season. As far as training camp content goes, that's pretty spicy and clickable so the footage has been spread far and wide. The same can be said for the takes.
Aaron Rodgers & Garrett Wilson chatting in between Team Drills #Jets pic.twitter.com/h78v47zgVE
— 𝙅𝙀𝙏𝙎 𝙈𝙀𝘿𝙄𝘼🛫 (@NYJets_Media) July 30, 2024
But after the initial kneejerk oh no this could be trouble reaction, more pundits have been weighing in to point out that this could ultimately be a very good thing for the Jets. Which honestly is pretty reasonable because hashing all of this stuff out before meaningful games is a perfectly fine plan. Rodgers, fairly or otherwise, gets dissected a bit more intensely whenever there's friction and such confrontations could be seen as leadership if it were a different quarterback.
On Wednesday's Good Morning Football, Kyle Brandt offered his take on the Rodgers-Wilson discussions. To understand it, perhaps, one must understand The Sopranos.
Aaron Rodgers ➡️ Tony Soprano pic.twitter.com/sYHfE30b3s
— Kyle Brandt (@KyleBrandt) July 31, 2024
"I've learned over my life that people of great power and influence are not only interested, they're almost craving people to stand up to them and talk back to them because no one does and they're just surrounded by sycophants and enablers," he said. "I think they're actually parched for someone to be like 'I actually don't like your idea and here's why.'
Brandt then recalled when Carmela Soprano, in the interest of telling her husband he didn't have many real friends, informed him that his crew only laughed at his jokes because they had to. Which led to Tony telling an intentional stinker to see who would snap into forced knee-slapping (a brutal moment for all comedy enthusiasts) before bringing up recent comments made by Davante Adams about his time with Rodgers.
"He was telling the story of one time it was Packers at Cowboys and Rodgers threw him a back shoulder in the end zone and they just missed, weren't on the same page. They're coming back to the huddle and Rodgers is getting the call and Davante just says 'no, no, throw it to me again' and Roders is like 'alright run the same play.' They run the same play, throws it to him again, touchdown beat the Cowboys. And Davante himself was like 'you know, people don't really talk that way to Aaron, no one tells him that, no one says throw it to me again.' Garrett Wilson is basically saying either 'throw it to me again' or 'no, I want the route that way.' And I think that is not only what Rodgers wants, I think it's exactly what he needs."
That's all food for thought. Plus an example of why the Jets are the perfect offseason/preseason team. Because this could mean everything if Wilson and Rodgers become an unstoppable duo or nothing at all if, say, an aging quarterback suffers a season-ending injury early in the year. Anyone who has ever watched The Sopranos knows that a surprising twist hides around every corner.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as 'Good Morning Football’ Already In Midseason Form With Jets-‘Sopranos' Analogy.
