Rodgers getting the Jets Coach to lose the room before Spring Practice.
Yeah, a dick move, asking Rodgers to fly across the country, “on his own dime” just to tell him they’re going a different direction.
Rodgers, commenting for the first time on his release from the Jets, took shots at the organization – new coach Aaron Glenn, in particular. Rodgers said he felt disrespected in what he described as a brief, contentious meeting on Feb. 6, when he flew via private jet from California to New Jersey to meet with Glenn and new general manager Darren Mougey to discuss his future.
“I felt like there wasn’t an ample amount of respect in that meeting, but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised based on some of the things I saw over the two years,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers said he was fired less than one minute into the meeting, adding that Glenn went “a little rogue” and expressed concern that his authority would be undermined by Rodgers.
“I figured that when I flew across country on my own dime that there was going to be a conversation,” Rodgers said. "And the confusing thing to me – and the strange thing – was when I went out there, I meet with the coach, we start talking, he runs out of the room. I’m like, ‘That’s kind of strange.’
"Then he comes back with the GM and I’m like, ‘All right.’ So, we sit down in the office, and I think we’re going to have this long conversation. I’ve flown across the country and, 20 seconds in, he goes … ‘So, do you want to play football?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m interested.’ And he said, ‘We’re going in a different direction at quarterback.’
“I was kind of shocked. Now I’m not shocked because I didn’t think that was a possibility. Listen, of course, if they want to move on, that’s totally fine, but shocked because I just flew across country. You could have told me this on the phone if we weren’t even going to have a conversation.”
Glenn asked how the quarterback wanted the information released to the media – “the messaging,” Rodgers said. “And I said, verbatim, ‘I don’t give a s— about the messaging.’”
Rodgers then took another jab at Glenn. Asked to explain the decision to release him, Rodgers quoted Glenn as saying, “I don’t want to be up in front of the room saying something and have guys looking back at you” – meaning, Rodgers would be a distraction.
Rodgers took umbrage.
“I said, ‘What does that even mean? Are you assuming that I would be in the back of the room during a team meeting, undermining what you’re saying?’ I said, ‘You don’t know me.’ And he said, ‘You don’t know me.’ And then I said, ‘Exactly, which is why I flew across the country to have a face-to-face meeting with you to talk about my experience with the Jets and to hear your vision for the team.’”
Rodgers said he walked out after 15 minutes. He said he never pleaded for his job, as one media report suggested.
Now, that is his version of the events, and it’s Rodgers, so he could actually believe his own story.
