Hard Knocks and 1JD Takeaways

The week, Jet Nation has been waiting for is finally here.  The Jets were a favorite to be on Hard Knocks before Aaron Rodgers became the team's starting quarterback, and once he announced his decision to play for the Jets it was essentially inevitable.  Despite trying to fight it, the NFL forced the Jets' hand, and the first episode was released at 10 p.m. ET on 8/8.  The Jets' in-house version of Hard Knocks, 1 Jets Drive, released their first episode the day before at 8pm ET on YouTube, giving Jet fans the content they've been fiending for all offseason.

Compared to Hard Knocks, 1JD was a flop.  While they didn't shy away from the team's championship aspirations, the only things I specifically remember wereAlijah Vera-Tucker talking about coming back from his injury and Method Man showing up at practice.  I would've loved to see more behind-the-scenes interviews that Hard Knocks didn't have access to, as well as an explanation on how they're handling the sky-high expectations for this season.

Hard Knocks, on the other hand, was absolutely amazing. From start to finish, they showed a lot about the team and how they're handling the expectations, with Coach Saleh using a crow and eagle analogy to explain how he expects the Jets to "suffocate" teams trying to beat them by "flying higher and higher" until the opponents can't keep up. Coach urged the players to embrace the target on their back and wants them to use it as motivation.  He ends the speech reiterating the phrase "WHAT NOW?" to emphasize that after each task, workout, etc. there's always an opportunity to get better. 

The main emphasis from all the team meetings was holding themselves to an extremely high standard.  DC Jeff Ulbrich emphasized that just doing your job will not be enough on this team and that you need to do more than your job if they want to go as far as they expect to go.  Ulbrich goes as far as to say that everybody in the NFL just does their jobs making that the average, and he emphasizes that he will not tolerate being average, even if it is being an average NFL player.  There's also a clip of a running back meeting where a similar message is echoed, and both of these messages are similar to Coach Saleh's "WHAT NOW" message at the beginning of the episode. This team wants to have no regrets and that is being emphasized from the start.

Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of Aaron Rodgers in this episode and a lot to dive into. First, he seems to be having the time of his life and there are countless clips of him smiling, laughing, and genuinely having a good time.  Some specific examples are the team attempting to imitate his no-look passes and the pre-practice pylon game where you see Rodgers joking around with everybody and trying to get people to laugh as they try to knock over a pylon.  Second, Rodgers' accuracy is insane.  Even simple drills where he has to hit a hole in a net that the coach calls out he makes look effortless.

It's only been one episode, but everything that's been said about Rodgers outside of his ability to throw the football better than anyone but maybe Mahomes seems to have been a lie. Rodgers has been a fantastic teammate, going out of his way and encouraging everybody to sit with different people every day.  He's taken pride in mentoring Zach Wilson and has pulled defensive, and offensive players aside to explain to him what he saw on a given play. His relationship with Hackett is a blast to watch as they mess with each other before and after practice.  Rodgers also has been a driving factor in the high standards, as he Rodgers throughout his career has epitomized Remember the Titan's Coach Boone's "We will be perfect" mantra when it comes to the offense.