Even Aaron Rodgers can’t stop the Patriots from picking on the Jets.
In fact, former Patriots great Julian Edelman targeted Rodgers specifically as the latest critic of the future Hall of Fame quarterback’s decision to miss mandatory minicamp from June 11-13.
Rodgers’ absence due an unknown previous commitment was unexcused by the team.
“I think it’s a bad look for your leader, for whatever reason, to go and miss an unexcused absence,” Edelman said Friday during an appearance on “The Herd with Colin Cowherd” on FS1. “I was with Tom Brady in his 25th year or 23rd year, and he started missing [voluntary] OTAs here and there, but he never missed a mandatory minicamp. I just thought it was a bad look.”
The Brady analogy isn’t perfect because Brady missed 11 days of training camp — much more important to preparation than minicamp — for unspecified reasons during the lead-in to his final season with the Buccaneers in 2022.
Brady and then-wife Gisele Bundchen divorced later that year.
Rodgers took a different approach to spring practice by attending the voluntary OTAs so that he still got in his reps while coming back from a torn Achilles suffered in the 2023 season-opener.
The drills used in and non-contact rules applied to OTAs and minicamp are very similar, with the main difference that an absence from mandatory workouts is subject to team-issued fines.
“I’m a big Aaron Rodgers fan,” Edelman said, “but if I was in that locker room and Aaron Rodgers wasn’t there for three days on the mandatory minicamp, having played four snaps off of an injury when we have two new receivers [and] a bunch of new linemen that we added to the team, with a CBA that doesn’t allow us to practice a lot? I guarantee there’s four or five guys — six, seven, eight, nine guys in that locker room — sitting there like, ‘Where’s he at?”
It is not publicly known where Rodgers was — he shared it with the Jets — though the rumor mill is churning.
The Jets would have excused Rodgers’ absence if it was under normal circumstances, such as a family commitment like a birth or a death.
“I know a lot of people do things differently,” Edelman said. “But God forbid the New York Jets start 1-3 at the beginning of the season, which they start with the Niners, Tennessee, Patriots and someone else regardless. We all know the Patriots are no good, but that defense is still the same [tough] defense, and that’s who Aaron goes against.
“If they go 1-3, this is going to be such a big distraction for that locker room. Because everyone is going to be talking about it — this is New York City. It’s the media capital of the world.”