Aaron Rodgers didn’t hold back on his feeling with Aaron Glenn after the Jets head coach opted to part ways with the veteran quarterback.
Aaron Rodgers is back in the news, as the NFL quarterback contemplates his football future. On Thursday, Rodgers joined the “Pat McAfee Show” to talk about where he’s currently at and how things have unfolded this offseason.
One of the more interesting parts of the conversation surrounded his departure from the New York Jets. With former Detroit Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn as their new head coach and Darren Mougey as their new general manager, the Jets opted to release Rodgers rather than make him part of their rebuilding process.
Rodgers said he wasn’t surprised by the team’s decision, but he was shocked about how that conversation went down. Rodgers claimed he flew on his own dime to the Jets facility, only to have a short meeting with the team that he believes could’ve been replaced by a phone call.
“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—literally, I’m talking to the GM about something and he (Glenn) leans to the edge of his seat and goes, ‘So do you want to play football?’” Rodgers said. “And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m interested.’ And he said, ‘We’re going in a different direction at quarterback.’ And I was kinda shocked. 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 the country. You could’ve told me this on the phone.”
In all, Rodgers said the meeting was just about 15 minutes long.
Rodgers was also a bit confused for Glenn’s reasoning for the parting of ways. Here’s how he described how that conversation went.
“He said, ‘I don’t want to be up in front of the room saying something, and have guys looking back at you,’” Rodgers said of Glenn. “And I said, ‘What does that even mean? Are you assuming that I would be in the back of the room during the 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.’’
Clearly there was a clash of personalities in this short meeting, but Rodgers also believes Glenn and the Jets missed an opportunity to get valuable information on the team even without Rodgers in their future plans.
“Why would you not pick my brain?” Rodgers said. “I’m there to talk to you about the team, about things that I think can get better and things that are good and players that have leadership possibilities and anything. I’ve been in the league 20 years. Any type of conversation. There was none.”
Ultimately, Rodgers said he believes Glenn’s meeting was “rogue” because he had some better conversations with other people within the organization, and ultimately he left feeling disrespected by the ordeal.
“I wasn’t upset about it. I was surprised. I felt like there wasn’t an ample amount of respect in that meeting, but I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised based some of the things I saw over two years,” Rodgers said.
You can watch a clip from the show below, or Rodgers’ entire interview over on McAfee’s YouTube Page.
