Robert Saleh suggested after Sunday’s game that the New York Jets might have to make a change on offense to help them avoid penalties, and it does not sound like Aaron Rodgers agrees with his coach.
The Jets had a horrible day offensively in their 10-9 loss to the Denver Broncos at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J. New York was called for five false start penalties, and Saleh was asked about that after the game. The coach suggested that the cadence might be an issue.
“We gotta figure it out, whether or not we’re good enough to handle all the (cadence) or ready to handle the cadence,” Saleh said. “The cadence had not been an issue all camp. I felt like our operation had been operating pretty good. Obviously, today took a major step back.”
Rodgers has long been a master at getting opponents to jump offsides. He does that with a loud cadence that requires a lot of discipline from his teammates. That discipline was not there on Sunday.
When Rodgers was asked about possibly dialing back the cadence, he openly disagreed with Saleh and said the Jets should hold players “accountable.”
“That’s one way to do it. The other way is hold them accountable,” Rodgers said. “We haven’t had an issue. We’ve had one false start — Morgan (Moses) had one false start, I believe — until this, so, you know. It’s been a weapon. We use it every day in practice. We rarely have a false start and to have five today … it seemed like an outlier. I don’t know if we need to make mass changes based on kind of an outlier game.”
The most costly false start for the Jets on Sunday came when they had 4th-and-goal from the 1-yard line in the first quarter. New York lined up to go for it, and John Simpson flinched on a hard count from Rodgers. That backed the Jets up five yards, so they kicked a field goal to take a 3-0 lead. In hindsight, that would have been an extremely important touchdown.
Had the Broncos jumped on the hard count, the Jets would have either gotten a free play or gained less than a yard. It is fair to wonder if using a complicated cadence was worth it in that situation, but Rodgers does not sound like he has any intention of changing his style.
