Rodgers pay cut, Sean Payton's comments, and the Hall of Fame Game

 

Welcome to The Flight to Glory, our series where we'll write about everything Jets.  Today, we'll be discussing the bad man's historic pay cut, Sean Payton's comments, and what we want to see this Thursday during the Hall of Fame game vs. the Browns. Let's get into it.

The Rodger's Pay Cut:

Acquiring a player with a resumé like Aaron Rodgers was bound to have a massive impact on the team. Every practice there are multiple reports that Rodgers is pulling aside players and mentoring them.  Whether it's explaining to the offensive players how he approaches a drill or pulling aside members of the secondary to explain what he saw pre-snap, Rodgers has been an invaluable asset to a young team with Super Bowl aspirations. On top of this, the often scrutinized QB has created an opportunity to make another massive impact and did something Packer fans never would've expected from their long-time QB: he took a pay cut. 

Taking a pay cut is a play straight out of Tom Brady's playbook when he was in New England.  Brady was never the highest-paid player in the league, averaging about $15m a year throughout his Patriot career despite universally being considered the greatest football player of all time.  This allowed all of Brady's teams the financial flexibility to spend money on other key positions to make the team better as a whole (such as signing Darrelle Revis for one year), leading to six Super Bowl victories in nine tries.  

However, not even Brady took a pay cut like Rodgers just did.  Rodgers took a pay cut of $35m, giving him a lower annual salary than QBs such as Daniel Jones, Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson, Matthew Stafford, Kyler Murray, and others, none of whom have the resumé or talent that Rodgers possesses. In the four major sports, there have been some other instances where players took less money to win (the main example that comes to mind is D-Wade on the Heat so that he could play with Lebron and Chris Bosh), but never this much.

Rodgers later stated that the purpose of this new contract is so that the Jets can go get impact players at the trade deadline (hint: a certain Raiders WR could be available), further confirming that Rodgers is fully committed to bringing back a Lombardi trophy to One Jets Drive.  

Jets QB1: Aaron "the badddddddd man" Rodgers

Sean Payton attacks Nathaniel Hackett:

The new Broncos coach, that cost the team a first-round pick despite winning only one Super Bowl with a perennial 5000-yard passer and illegal bounty program, attacked the now Jets OC and ex-Broncos head coach saying that he did the worst coaching job in the history of football and everything the Broncos did last year, they will be doing the opposite.  Sean Payton also attacked the Jets organization as a whole, saying that the Jets went out of their way to "win the offseason" but that typically never translates to regular season success. Personally, I find the thought of Sean Payton literally asking the players exactly how they practiced and prepared last year so that they can do the exact opposite funny.

I think Sean Payton is a good head coach, but I also think it's easy to win a lot of games when you have Drew Brees, one of the most efficient passers in football, throwing for 5000 yards every year while playing in a relatively weak division.  I also don't think Hackett was the sole problem in Denver as every week tweets were calling for Melvin Gordon to be benched for fumbling or clips of Russell Wilson missing wide-open receivers five yards past the line of scrimmage or in the end zone. 

Regarding Payton's comments about the Jets trying to win the offseason, I would argue this was just a by-product of acquiring Aaron Rodgers, a four-time MVP who already is one of the most talked about NFL players because of his off-the-field beliefs and is now in the New York market.  On top of this, the Jets also boast many young, exciting players who were all recruiting Rodgers and have not shied away from the Super Bowl expectations surrounding this team.

Many Jet players took notice of these comments, with Rodgers firing back, Billy Turner posting bounty gate on his Instagram story, and even Coach Saleh talking about the comments at length after saying he didn't really want to talk about it.  

Overall, I think these comments were way out of line, and Payton even said he regretted saying them (even though he didn't retract them), and I cannot wait for this matchup in week 5.  The Jets are very good at getting amped up by themselves and adding fuel to the fire this team has could be extremely dangerous.

New Broncos Head Coach, Sean Payton

Hall of Fame Game:

This Thursday (8/3), the New York Jets play a football game.  Coach Saleh already confirmed no starters are playing, but we'll still see Zach Wilson and Mekhi Becton (albeit on a pitch count).  Hopefully, the Jets play a good clean football game and we get out of Ohio with no injuries. Here are three key things I'm looking forward to seeing:

1. Zach Wilson: Can he make all the right reads? How will the accuracy -- especially on short and intermediate passes--look.
2. Mekhi Becton:  Does he look healthy? He should dominate this game against the Browns' backup pass rushers. If he doesn't there's a major reason to be worried about him contributing to this team but I'm expecting/hoping for a solid outing from him. 
3. Jets D-Line:  It's no secret the Jets have an extremely deep pass-rushing group.  The backups would probably be starters on a lot of teams in the league and have been dominating the Jets O-line all summer and it would be nice to see them terrorize another team's offensive line.