With six games remaining in the regular season and the potential for Aaron Rodgers to return if they are in playoff contention, one would think the Jets are feeling a lot of pressure to give their prized quarterback a chance to turn the season around.
Rather, the team is simply excited to have him back in the building.
“I don’t think there is any pressure on it,” Solomon Thomas told The Post when asked about added pressure to win for Rodgers to return to play. “We obviously want to win. We want to make playoffs and we want Aaron to come back whenever he’s ready to play. … There’s definitely excitement at this possibility of getting him back. Just excited to have him back in the building. Having the presence of a 19-year Hall of Fame player in the building, you can’t beat that.”
On Friday, Rodgers practiced at the Jets’ facility in Florham Park.
He went through the motions of stretching and warming up during the rainy afternoon.
Across the field, he could be seen throwing routine 30-yard passes to his teammates.
Quincy Williams has felt Rodgers’ presence in practice already and has taken only positives from it, especially as an extra set of eyes on the defense.
“It’s great to have him. The biggest thing is, he is a big energy person,” Williams told The 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 from a torn Achilles after four snaps in Week 1 against the Bills, the quarterback has not ruled anything out of the realm of possibility in terms of a target return date.
Nevertheless, for Rodgers to return, the team has to give incentive for him to come back. And the 4-7 Jets, who rank second-worst in yards per game in the NFL (260.2), have an uphill climb to turn production around.
In the upcoming six games, the Jets face the Falcons, Texans, Dolphins, Commanders, Browns and wrap up against the Patriots. They have 19 days left to activate Rodgers or shut him down for the season.
“I think we just want to win just because having him back is a blessing and a beautiful thing,” Tanzel Smart told The 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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