NFL OTAs Highlights: Aaron Rodgers' Return to the Field at 40
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00:00 A fun time in the National Football League offseason calendar as this week we have OTAs,
00:06 organized team activities, early here in this offseason around the National Football League.
00:12 And part of it, Donnie, is just seeing guys back in the facility, back on the practice field
00:17 together in shorts and helmets. It's not all that significant from a football perspective,
00:22 but the beauty in it is hearing from players and coaches that we haven't really heard from
00:28 all that frequently in the last few months since the middle of February in the end of the prior
00:34 NFL season. That includes Aaron Rodgers. Back on the field for gang green yesterday,
00:40 reports out of Forum Park in New York, he was tossing that thing around. He looks good,
00:45 even at the age or soon to be 40 years old. Coming off the torn Achilles, of course, only playing
00:52 four offensive snaps last season in his debut year, his first after 18 seasons in Green Bay.
00:59 That will be the storyline to monitor for Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets all year long. And
01:06 there is a little bit of irony or deja vu, perhaps, with... What happened? Did you catch that,
01:14 by the way? Did you catch that? No. Did you catch that? What do we got? The final clip, yeah,
01:21 there it is. Sandwiched in the New York Jets, Aaron Rodgers B-roll. We had him and Randall
01:27 Cobb on the Green Bay Packers. That's good. That shows how much I was paying attention here.
01:32 The return motto. Focus on what I was supposed to say next at this point. So I didn't... And by the
01:37 way, you said, did you catch it? Put it back up on the screen. I still didn't catch it, even though
01:40 I did stare at a Green Bay Packers, Aaron Rodgers and Randall Cobb. So there you go.
01:45 So DRS, that will be the irony of it all. Of course, the opening Monday night of the year
01:50 last year in MetLife against the Buffalo Bills. Only four plays for Aaron Rodgers this year,
01:56 opening Monday night of 2024 on the road in Santa Clara against the San Francisco 49ers.
02:02 Robert Sala, head coach of New York, saying yesterday, no restrictions on Aaron Rodgers
02:07 back at practice on the field. He's doing everything he can. Yeah, which is good news
02:12 for them, right? Because you want the clean off season. And if there's any sort of positivity
02:17 that happened last year from the Jets, when there wasn't a lot of positivity, particularly from
02:20 their offense or their quarterback position is Aaron Rodgers didn't get hurt around Christmas
02:24 time, right? He got hurt on the first game of the season, which is basically going to give an older
02:29 quarterback an entire year to get ready to get back on the field by the time he starts week number
02:35 one. There's a lot of expectations here and behind the scenes, Aaron Rodgers pulling a lot of strings
02:39 to say, do you want to keep me happy and I don't retire? Give me the same exact coaching staff I
02:44 had last year, along with the general manager and Woody Johnson, the owner of the Jets is not going
02:48 to upset that apple cart when he knows that apple cart totally includes Aaron Rodgers being happy
02:53 with his surroundings. So I look for a big performance out of Aaron Rodgers this year.
02:57 The only question is, is he going to be able to survive an entire season? We're looking at that
03:01 Jets offensive line that's been rebuilt here, which is great. We know he's been a whole year
03:05 through that system that he already knows with Nathaniel Hackett. Let's see how it turns out.
03:09 I'm slightly optimistic on the Jets, but I'm not going to be surprised here for again,
03:13 we're fighting on that nine and a half, 10 wins, maybe 10 and seven season when it could be really
03:20 good, or it could be disastrous if he gets injured once again. So Aaron Rodgers only played four
03:25 snaps last year. He is the tender age of 40 years old, turned 40 back in early December, coming off
03:32 a torn Achilles. He hasn't played a ton of football in the last calendar year. And his last season in
03:38 green Bay was one of the worst of his NFL career in all 18 that he has played. And that followed
03:44 two straight MVP seasons for Aaron Rodgers, the four time NFL MVP in that final year, 2022
03:52 in green Bay with the Packers. He was under all of those props that you see, you mentioned Aaron
03:58 Rodgers and the idea of if I would retire in the off season. Well, if you remember the last time
04:03 we really discussed Aaron Rodgers at length was the weird reports that he was maybe considering
04:09 running as the vice president on the presidential ticket of Robert F Kennedy jr. And that was
04:15 another conversation yesterday, Aaron Rodgers, simply saying he really had two options, retire
04:22 and be his VP or keep playing. I wanted to keep playing. I will never not chuckle at the guy
04:29 that at the end of a tumultuous season for the New York jets, who said we need to keep all the
04:34 off the field distractions out of the locker room, continuing to run his mouth. But the best part
04:40 about that too, is like, Oh, I was going to be the VP or retire like, first of all, RFK is not going
04:44 to be the president. So you're not going to be the vice president. And what would you be doing
04:48 come what early November when you thought you were going to be the actual vice president come
04:52 back to the NFL. So that story alone certainly is hilarious, but we're trying to look at the
04:57 jets optimistically this season. If things go right and Aaron Rodgers is old Aaron Rodgers.
05:01 Yeah, they're going to be pretty competitive and they should probably make the playoffs,
05:04 but that's a tough division. You still have to overcome the Kansas city chiefs in that same
05:08 conference here. And also Aaron Rodgers and older quarterback only played a couple snaps last year.
05:13 Let's see if he can make it through that first game, which is going to be against
05:16 a really good pass rush with the San Francisco 49ers. But it did like what the NFL said,
05:20 Hey, Aaron, you getting injured last year, cost us a lot of money. You owe us this year. So we're
05:24 going to put the jets down there on prime time. Every single chance we get good luck with that.
05:29 Listen, they have restored or they are trying to rebuild that offensive line. Oluf Asinu was the
05:35 draft pick 11th overall for New York out of Penn state. I think one of the best offensive linemen
05:40 in this draft, the offensive line was a worrisome spot for New York during hard knocks training
05:46 camp, Aaron Rodgers, Robert solid, but moaning how bad the old line was. Of course it did cost
05:52 Aaron Rodgers his season. The New York jets have the longest active post-season drought in any of
05:58 the four major men's professional sports leagues here in North America, the NFL, the NBA, MLB,
06:04 NHL, 13 consecutive seasons gangrene has failed to reach the playoffs with Aaron Rodgers. They
06:11 are favored to do so once again at a minus one 44 price. It is directly correlated to that nine
06:18 and a half wind total where the juice is the same on the over at minus one 44. I remain pessimistic.
06:26 I remain skeptical about the New York jets getting to the playoffs, but DRS, you seem to be singing a
06:31 different tune. Again, it all weighs down on the quarterback himself, because again, we can't
06:37 preview this. Oh, he's not going to get injured. Well, he just got injured and missed the entire
06:40 season and it's not an injury. It's like, okay, we just repaired like his elbow and his non-throwing
06:45 shoulder. Like that was an Achilles injury, which who knows if that pops up again, but you look at
06:49 that defense, all that defense, which is so, so talented needs is a competent offense. If Aaron
06:55 Rodgers is healthy, though, at least if nothing be competent here, they should make the playoffs
07:00 next year. If they don't and Aaron Rodgers plays the full schedule, I don't know where you go for
07:05 me for the jets. A lot of talented offensive pieces around the quarterback spot and Aaron
07:11 Rodgers. But if it doesn't work, we're talking a five-year hiatus from postseason on top of it.
07:17 More around OTAs in the NFL next. Organized team activities, OTAs around the National Football
07:23 League underway this week. And for some teams, that means some new faces in critical positions.
07:30 At the quarterback spot in Pittsburgh, it's now Russell Wilson and Justin Fields. The new QB room
07:36 for the Steelers on display yesterday on the practice field. And after practice, Justin Fields
07:42 met with the media to discuss how he's going to handle this offseason competing for that starting
07:48 job. I'm definitely competing. I think Russ knows that. We're competing against each other every
07:54 day. Him being out there for me, that helps me get better, especially each other. So I mean,
08:00 I definitely don't have the mindset of me just sitting all year. So I'm coming in every day,
08:05 giving it all I got and pushing him to be his best. And he's pushing me to be my best each
08:09 and every day. So I appreciate that. Do you hear what he said? Yeah, hold on, hold on. That's like
08:16 a lav mic here at the Sports Grid Network right there. Is that how it would sound live over the
08:20 air at this point? Is that why? Somebody put a headset on Justin Fields so we can understand
08:26 audibly what he is saying. All right. Anyway, for the actual conversation of who we believe is
08:38 going to be the starter in Pittsburgh, all indications and reports have stated it's Russell
08:43 Wilson's job to lose. But Justin Fields is there for the future. The Steelers did not pick up
08:50 Justin Fields, his fifth year player or team option, I should say, on his rookie contract.
08:56 So this year is his final year under contract with the Steelers. What that means beyond,
09:02 we shall see. Now, Russell Wilson had a disastrous two years in Denver, but at least from a production
09:08 standpoint, last year was not nearly as bad as 2022. In fact, the numbers pretty good for Russ,
09:14 over 3000 passing yards, 29 touchdowns to only eight INTs. Justin Fields never truly equating
09:22 to that promise that he had in Chicago. I still believe Justin Fields will be a successful
09:28 starting quarterback in the National Football League. I'm just not so sure DRS it starts in 2024
09:34 for the Steelers. Who do you think is that week one starter for Pittsburgh as they face the Atlanta
09:40 Falcons? Let's go over what happened in the offseason here for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
09:44 And also more importantly here with, you know, Justin Fields, you take a look at Justin Fields
09:48 coming over from Chicago. Now in the past, like week and a half, we've have a lot of back talking
09:53 here on Justin Fields and what he was not in that Chicago room, which particularly was coming from
09:58 the film room. Now, granted, take that with a little bit of a grain of salt. We can always
10:02 agree that Chicago didn't put their best foot forward with Justin Fields, getting the weapons
10:06 out here and having him mature as a good young quarterback. We'll see if that changes. But here's
10:09 the issue. Also, we heard Justin Fields talking about, you know, Pittsburgh was the place I always
10:13 wanted to be even before they got Russell Wilson. And even after the sign Russell Wilson, I still
10:17 wanted to go there. I don't know how much I believe that at that point, because Russell Wilson is going
10:21 to be your starter. But here's where I actually liked the move in the beginning, Ben. You knew
10:25 Russell Wilson was going there. Then they get Justin Fields. I said, you know what? They've
10:29 been having quarterback issues over the past couple of years trying to find their guy. I love this.
10:33 We know at the top level of his game, Russell Wilson is a Hall of Fame quarterback. Is he going
10:38 to get back there? I don't know. But he wasn't all that bad with the Denver Broncos team that was
10:42 incredibly injured last year. So Russell Wilson going to Pittsburgh made a lot of sense to me.
10:47 Then they get Justin Fields. I said, this is perfect, Ben, because you got a quarterback
10:50 that you would still like to light that fire under and Russell Wilson by saying, like, this isn't just
10:55 a guaranteed starting job for here. We need you to come in and really get back that motivation that
10:59 made you a great quarterback in the NFL, where you started as a rookie in Seattle over a guy that
11:04 they paid a lot of money, I believe it was Matt Flynn back in the day, that hunger we need back.
11:08 But then you told Justin Fields, like, you don't even have a chance to be the starting quarterback.
11:12 Like, we're not going to fight this out in training camp at this point. And then also
11:16 you get Justin Fields in, he's working out a little bit, and we're coming away with,
11:19 yeah, you know what? We could probably use him as a kick returner. I don't know what is going on
11:23 inside of Pittsburgh, but from a scenario I thought that would be tremendous. I just think
11:27 they're blowing it right now by basically telling Justin Fields, you have no chance to be a starter
11:31 this year. Maybe if the guy gets injured in front of you and we'll work in to keep you interested by
11:36 being a kick returner. I don't know what's going on in Pittsburgh, Ben, I don't. I still think the
11:41 situation ultimately will be beneficial for both quarterbacks. How it plays out, that remains to
11:47 be seen. And we'll see how long Justin Fields remains in Pittsburgh, again, only under contract
11:53 for this upcoming year. If Russ doesn't get hurt, or if Russ does not struggle and Fields is on the
11:58 bench, he's going to be going somewhere else to start 2025. And again, how does it all play out?
12:04 Who gives the Steelers the better option to do what Pittsburgh has done all 17 years under Mike
12:11 Tomlin? That's win at least eight games and never have a losing record. The Steelers win total this
12:16 year is seven and a half in the over has the heavy, heavy juice at minus 184. Pittsburgh was
12:24 a playoff team a season ago with an inept offense. I think Russell Wilson and Justin Fields and or
12:31 an upgrade at the quarterback spot, probably more than the Steelers have had the last three NFL
12:36 seasons more around football next more OTAs talk around the NFL. It is going to be a very
12:43 interesting year number two for the number one overall pick of 2023. That is Bryce Young,
12:49 a disappointing rookie campaign and a ton of chaos in Carolina, his head coach and his entire
12:55 offensive staff, Frank Reich and others fired midway through Bryce Young's rookie year now
13:01 stepping in as the head man in Charlotte. It's Dave Canales, the offensive coordinator last year
13:06 in Tampa, highly regarded as an innovative offensive mind who resurrected the starting
13:12 quarterback career of Baker Mayfield. Dave Canal is saying after the first few days of OTAs practice
13:18 that Bryce Young has been quote fantastic learning the Panthers new offense. Now he did say right
13:24 after that, we've kept things rather vanilla. There's not a lot to learn at this point,
13:29 but everything that we have asked Bryce Young, he has mastered as expected. What do you expect
13:36 Donnie for Bryce Young and year number two this season for the Panthers? Much better than year
13:41 number one. That's for sure. At least you went and got him a legitimate starting wide receiver
13:44 and Deontay Johnson. That should help with a little bit of downfield threat that they really
13:48 didn't have all that much of last year. But I don't have high expectations here for the Carolina
13:52 Panthers. Not in love with what they did in the offseason because when you trade away your best
13:56 talent at defensive end, that doesn't help your defense out. Especially if a quarterback that was
14:01 really beaten around last year on that terrible, terrible offense. But again, not a lot of weapons
14:06 to deal with. A new fresh look and appearance here from an offensive coordinator that's supposed to
14:10 instill confidence in your young superstar quarterback. We'll see if it happens, but I
14:15 always get back and I love these quotes. Man, he looks fantastic. What do we expect them to say?
14:19 I don't know why I got here. I can't play football. So I do take everything with a grain of salt,
14:24 but I say this, it can't be any worse than last year. And the one thing that we do know,
14:28 pop on the tapes of Alabama back in the day when Bryce was playing for them. He's a really good
14:33 quarterback. There is a base to work with here as if we're not being surprised. I think most people
14:37 were surprised that they were that bad last year and he was. Maybe it's just coaching at this point,
14:41 but if there is a kid to bounce back and can probably be a good NFL quarterback, it's probably
14:45 him. Listen, sometimes a situation is so sour. It is more of a detriment to the player than any bit
14:52 of his skill set or talent. I still believe Bryce Young was the correct selection at first. Overall,
14:58 it is a supremely talented quarterback, but for a guy in his rookie year that played in 16 games
15:06 and only threw for over 200 yards, five times, only more than two 50 once that was a 300 yard
15:13 and two touchdown performance against green Bay on Christmas Eve. The numbers are not great.
15:19 Carolina last year, worst team in the national football league. The Panthers booked as an
15:23 underdog in all 17 games, worst cover team in the NFL by a good margin for 11 and two against
15:30 the spread. The Panthers went total for 2024, five and a half and the under has the heavy
15:36 juice. The Panthers have the longest odds to win Superbowl 59 at 300 to one. I say all that because
15:44 the outlook this year should not be overly optimistic for Bryce Young or Dave Canales
15:48 or Carolina, but you want to see improvement in the passing stats in numbers in command of the
15:54 offense for Bryce Young. And as a team, even if they're going to win five, six games, at least be
16:00 competitive booked as an underdog in a ton. What makes it difficult for Bryce Young? I think even
16:07 further, Donnie is the fact that the guy that was drafted right after him, CJ Stroud ran away with
16:12 the offensive rookie of the year, led his team to a divisional title and a playoff victory in his
16:17 first season. That's what makes it tough because you're really comparing him against a young
16:22 quarterback that we haven't seen too much of a young quarterback play that well for a team. We
16:26 didn't expect much from for the Houston Texans and even being the MVP race come around November
16:31 time. CJ Stroud was awesome. So it's a tough bill because if you are Carolina, what did you watch?
16:36 Well, if we got CJ, maybe we'd be having this type of rebound. And then the worst case scenario was,
16:41 well, we stunk so bad that we didn't even get a hydrant pick the following year because we traded
16:45 away for Bryce Young at this point. So hopefully things change around, but it's hard to measure up
16:50 because CJ Stroud is the outlier. You're not supposed to come in and look like a 10 year
16:54 vet in your rookie season with a rookie head coach on a team that wasn't expected to do a lot.
16:58 Some interesting words out of Miami, out of safety, Javon Holland, about Anthony Weaver
17:05 taking over the defensive coordinator spot for Vic Fangio. Of course, Vic making the move
17:10 back to his native Philadelphia to take command of the Eagles. Javon Holland saying it's been a
17:15 complete 180. When asked what Weaver does to relate to players, it's the fact that he's a good person
17:22 that makes a difference. So perhaps more positive vibes this off season defensively. It's what
17:27 really kept Miami back DRS from making any significant postseason noise. So banged up in
17:34 that super chilly and frosty first playoff game, super wildcard weekend against Kansas City. But
17:40 that's really how the Dolphins get to that next tier of truly being a conference contender in the
17:45 AFC. Yeah, they had a lot of changing parts here this season on the Miami Dolphins, which does
17:49 include some of those coaching staffs were worried about the Miami Dolphins. Are they going to sign
17:52 to a long term? How much is that money going to be? But the one thing we do know is that offense
17:56 should be in full rhythm this year. You just need that defense to stay healthy. Now getting back to
18:01 the points here of coaches you don't like or dislike. Very like Vic Fangio is a very good
18:06 defensive coordinator, long track record. A lot of people say positive things about him. You're not
18:10 going to make friends with everybody, but you know what this tells me as a former player, not in the
18:14 NFL level, but just high school and college is that the old coach was very hard on them, which
18:20 means extra practice time. Make sure you stay after watch film at home, and I'm going to keep
18:25 you longer in these meetings tonight. Anthony Weaver comes in and goes, Hey, guys, we're not
18:28 going to do any of that. Let's see if we change it up. Players love that. Players love a players
18:32 coach because the players coach knows what the players wants. Sometimes not in their best interest
18:37 because you want to make sure it's more of a country club atmosphere to keep the guys healthy
18:42 and engage longer. When Vic Fangio is probably that old school guy like, what do you mean? We're
18:46 not leaving after three hours here. We got another game to watch here. So sit back, relax, call your
18:50 wives and girlfriends. You'll be home late tonight. That's what it sounds like to me right away.
18:54 It is still really interesting to think of Miami favored to make the playoffs at minus 134. The
19:00 AFC is going to be competitive. The division in the AFC East is going to be a gauntlet. There's a
19:06 fly flying around my face, live right here in the studio at the moment. I still think optimistically
19:12 about Miami because of how good the offense can be. But the defense, the difference if they're
19:16 going to get even close to that 12 to one price to win the AFC championship, quickly switching gears
19:23 to a wild off season in college football. It always is the last few years, conference realignment,
19:29 NIL era transfer portal, all of that in perhaps a new piece of the saga that has been one of the
19:36 wildest NIL stories in this era surrounding quarterback Jaden Rashad, who is now at
19:42 Georgia, but initially committed to Miami flipped his commitment and then signed with Florida for a
19:50 highly reported and high value deal of an NIL contract of 13.85 million. Jaden Rashad is now
20:01 suing Florida's head coach, Billy Napier and long time UF booster mega booster Hugh Hathcock for
20:08 being defrauded out of millions of dollars. We have an active college football quarterback who
20:15 plays at Georgia, suing the head coach of one of Georgia's biggest rivals, who is active in
20:21 Billy Napier. Again, one of the wildest stories you will see, but representative of the times in
20:27 which we live in collegiate athletics. - Yeah, the only thing I could think of is I go back to
20:31 like Manti Tello and said, well, why would you bring up the old Notre Dame linebacker who basically
20:35 was catfished? I think Jaden Rashad was catfished here. There's no way in heck anybody's giving this
20:40 kid $14 million to play when we hadn't seen anything at the college landscape that says
20:44 he's anywhere even close to good enough to even come up with that money. We've talked about like,
20:48 hey, I got a million dollars to go here, 2 million or 3 million as some of the high end numbers.
20:52 And just out of nowhere, it's like one of those contracts like, hey, a quarterback's negotiating
20:55 for $5 million. Next I goes like, well, good. I was told I'm getting 30 million. It's like,
20:59 this doesn't make sense. No way in hell do I believe that Jaden Rashad was getting $14 million.
21:04 I actually think he just got catfished by people that were playing jokes on him at this point,
21:08 because how could a quarterback of his ilk expect $14 million over what, four years at Florida?
21:15 Made no sense to me. We'll see how this turns out.
21:17 He was a top 50 recruit in the class of 2022, one of the 10 best quarterbacks
21:24 nationally as a prospect. But to Donnie's point, I think it speaks to what we see now in the NIL
21:31 era. The crux of the lawsuit is that Billy Napier called Rashad his father right before
21:36 national signing day in December of 2022 and said, we want to give you a million dollars up front in
21:42 a signing bonus. Rashad has signed his NLI national letter of intent, and they never received that
21:48 million dollar up front payment. Again, fraudulent, false claims made in this lawsuit. There could be
21:55 plenty more. We could spend an entire hour on that, but we get back to the NBA playoffs next.