Aaron Rodgers on playing in preseason: 'That's Robert's decision'

Aaron Rodgers was a little surprised to hear he wouldn’t play in any preseason games for the New York Jets.

But, he conceded it was head coach Robert Saleh’s decision when asked about it Wednesday. Still, he’s open to playing in games to get his feet wet since that’s what he’s used to doing for the vast majority of his career.

For now, it’s still to-be-determined if this’ll stick but Rodgers might not be playing until the season opener.

“That’s Robert’s decision,” Rodgers said. “I’ve never told him I don’t want to play in the preseason. There’s a lot of thoughts about whether there’s any particular gain from it. You know, we used to play all the time. It wasn’t even a question. We play, you know, 10 to 15 (snaps) in the first one, a quarter and a half in the second one and into third quarter in the third one … Shoot, sometimes through the third quarter we would play, you know, maybe a series or two. 

“Now nobody wants to play. They don’t want to play their guys. It’s different to combat that and now we’re doing all these practices with other teams. So we have three of those. I’m assuming those will be like our super heavy days, then it’ll be like the preseason for us. If he decides he wants me to play against the Giants, I’ll strap it up and look forward to that.”

Rodgers maintained he has no restrictions coming off his Achilles injury. He was asked if the carefulness of the staff was because of him coming back.

“No I don’t think so,” Rodgers said. “I don’t have any restrictions. I’m doing keepers, rollouts. So it was news to me yesterday when he said I wasn’t gonna play in the first two (preseason games) … But we hadn’t even had a conversation about that. So, I was you know, assuming I’d take a ton of reps in the inner squad, when the other team comes in, whatever we call that. Those fun times. And then, if he wants me to play I’ll play.”

Rodgers only played four snaps last season before he tore his Achilles in the opener against teh Buffalo Bills. As long as he’s healthy, the Jets have immense expectations due to their elite defense and weapons around their QB.

Rodgers brought a lot of hype back to the franchise last season but there are certainly more questions in New York in 2024 than originally anticipated.