Aaron Rodgers, 9.7

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Bruce Beck, WNBC: Aaron, how would you describe your level of excitement for the home opener?

I would say strong to quite strong.

 

Bruce Beck, WNBC: Is this a little bit different for you or is it just business as usual?

It’s different. I have been in one city for 18 years and now a new team, but it was good to get the pads on the last preseason game. So, it will be exciting, Monday Night Football is great. You play in the League long enough, you want a lot of one o’clock games, but you don’t grow up dreaming about playing the one o’clock games, you dream of playing Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football. So, it will be fun to start the season out on Monday night.

 

Tina Cervasio, WNYW Fox 5: Just with all the buildup and you mentioned that you had butterflies before that preseason game, what kind of emotions do you expect Monday night before it starts?

A lot of tears, a lot of tears, a lot of sobbing probably. No, I am going to be good, I am going to be excited. I am going to be excited to be out there with the crowd, see the crowd out there early, hopefully. Get all the jitters out of the way probably in pregame and just go out and try to execute.

 

Tina Cervasio, WNYW Fox 5: Now that it is a real week, how do you think the team looks especially the offense in installs?

Oh yeah, we had a good day today. It was hot, so we grinded through the heat. No pads, tomorrow will be a good Thursday style practice for us, but a good first day.

 

Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: You haven’t seen a lot of the Bills over the years, what are some of your takeaways from watching them?

Yeah, I mean they have a couple good veteran guys on the back end. They are all veterans, three of them. The safeties, I have played against Jordan (Poyer) a little bit. I have played with Micah (Hyde), I love Micah, one of the greatest teammates, awesome player, super heady both of them really smart guys, suave, good disguise, corners are solid. Obviously, (Matt) Milano has been an All-Pro type of player for the last few years of his career. Up front, solid, they will get after you with not only the edge rushers, but the interior guys. So, defense plays really well together. Last year in Green Bay, we ran the ball pretty well on them, but we didn’t throw it really well. We had a time of possession advantage that was huge, we were down by 17 in the fourth, so it didn’t really mean a whole lot, but obviously they have some talent on the other side of the ball. Josh (Allen) is a phenomenal player, so we are going to have to keep up with him scoring.

 

Tina Cervasio, WNYW Fox 5: Do you have a message for the team? We saw you give a lot of messages on Hard Knocks, now that this is for real, and you guys are playing together.

Yeah, I got a lot of messages for them.

 

Tina Cervasio, WNYW Fox 5: Can you share one?

Nope. They are esoteric in nature.

 

Ian O’Connor, HarperCollins, News Corp: Aaron, you know the organization had misgivings about Hard Knocks, do you think ultimately, for you personally, it was a really good thing because it focused on your leadership skills and building the connect with teammates might have given fans nationally a look at something they didn’t know a lot about?

I think they had known some about, but maybe not rooted in a lot of truth. So, I think that part was good to have out there. I think there was some misgivings about the whole experience. I don’t know how much we initially allowed them to film. I thought from my standpoint, when you are cutting a guy, it is the lowest part of a guys career and I am glad we did not keep that in there. I think that should be behind closed doors conversations. Maybe not every team meeting they were in, but there was a lot of access. I felt like it was good for our guys. The majority of our guys, except for C.J. Uzomah’s hair, we kind of stayed pretty authentic to ourselves, we didn’t change a whole lot. Overall, a good experience for me and good experience for the team, I think.

 

Emmanuel Morgan, New York Times: How has having Randall (Cobb) here help you adjust you to a new team?

It’s been great. It is not just Randall, I am by (Allen) Lazard over there and Billy Turner is right here and some older guys I have known over the years. But I think the beauty is not just having those guys but there is so many guys that I don’t know in here. Guys like Ashton (Davis) from ‘Cal’ so we got a connection right there. Guys like ‘Cookie’ (Dalvin Cook) who I have played against him for a long time. Young guys who I don’t know who I have to try harder to kind of break down those walls and figure out what they are in to. Offensive line that I don’t really know, which has been fun to get to know those guys, get to hang out with them outside the facility. That is the beauty in this game is the relationships and seeing that friendship grow over the years, really over the year for me being my first year here, and I am really enjoying it.

 

Bruce Beck, WNBC: Do you have a message for Jets fans at home, what kind of football team they will see this year?

Oh, I don’t know, I just want them to show up early and be as loud as possible when we are on defense. There is a lot of excitement for the right reasons, and we will hopefully put a good product on the field starting Monday.

 

Steve Politi, NJ Advance Media: You have talked openly about winning the Super Bowl with your opening press conference, I am curious what about the last few months has strengthened your resolve about that?

Oh, I don’t think I need the resolve to be strengthened at all. I think a part of that is speaking things into existence, the idea of manifestation, and the other part of that is a realistic look at the locker room, knowing that there is anywhere from six to 12 teams every year that can do it and that we are one of those six to 12 teams.

 

Joe Mauceri, WPIX: There are young guys on the team, I know Sauce (Gardner) and Breece (Hall) and some of those guys burn the cheese head before trying to lure you here, obviously the connection with Garrett Wilson, can you talk about what they have done for you, maybe to rejuvenate you or make you feel more comfortable here?

Well, there are a lot of guys that have really made me feel comfortable here and have made me feel at home. I think as much as anybody the relationship with Zach (Wilson) has been the most important one, because him and I already had a friendship and coming in here and knowing that I am coming into be the guy, where he has been the guy and he has delt with so much scrutiny in the media and ups and downs his first couple years, for him to embrace me the way he has been fantastic. I love him, I really care about him and I want to see him grow and get better and to watch me and to be in my hip pocket and to learn as much as possible. But that relationship was first and foremost I think most important and the other friendships have just grown, I love Sauce and MC (Michael Carter), and Garrett (Wilson) is a great, great guy, Mekhi (Becton), Connor McGovern, the brain trust over here in the corner, which is Duane (Brown) and Al (Woods) and JFM (John Franklin-Myers) and Quinton (Jefferson) and myself get a lot of stuff done, as far as current events and topics every single day.

Tina Cervasio, WNYW Fox 5: As far as Garrett Wilson, where have you seen the growth in him since minicamp until now getting ready for Week One?

I just think he has a good focus on what to do to get better every day and there is a lot of

learning, teaching moments throughout the entire offseason and even training camp and even today there are things that happen. The beautiful thing about him is he is so sharp and he has such great recall, there is not repeat mistakes, if something happens once, the next time it comes up, he is going to fix it.

Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: How comforting is it knowing you are going into the season with a really strong defense, which let’s face it, probably wasn’t the case every year in your career and how does that effect how you manage the game knowing you have a strong defense?

Well, I have never liked a sentence that has a manage and game in the same sentence, so I feel like as a quarterback you are there to make plays. Sometimes the play is to check it down and to be smart, but you got to opportunistic, when you got a great defense, which like I feel like we do, I think you just have to play how you have always played, be smart, you can take some chances when they are there, but it is all about a percentage game and trying to find the highest percentage match up every single time. But again, look we are zero and zero just like everybody. It will be two teams, it will be different after  tonight, but you don’t know what is going to happen, there is a lot of ideas about how good we are going to be, how good everyone else is going to be and nothing really matters until you get on the field to go out there and play. It takes a few weeks to figure out kind of your identity on both sides of the ball so we are going to be a work in progress, but we got some good tests out the gate and we got to start fast on Monday.

Brian Costello, New York Post: Aaron, going back to OTAs you came in with guys who had worked with you for a while, understood you and your offense and guys who hadn’t. Where are you in terms of bridging that gap and where do you feel like some of the guys who you haven’t worked with before are now in terms of their understanding?

It kind of depends on the guy, I think there are some guys who are right up to speed, and everything is down for them and some guys who are almost there, so the most important thing is that I have to make sure we are on the same page. So that is part of my preparation, is letting them know early in the week what we are going to go with, what checks are up, what signals are up, what dummy signals are up, what dummy codes words are up, and work them in the week in practice so there are not any surprises on gameday and we have adjusted a lot of things, we have adjusted signals I have used for years that are no longer in existence, so I am studying extra on those, because I got 18 years in some of those signals banked that we changed. We have made some good adjustments with the offensive staff on things that I have done over the years that just don’t really register with guys mentally because they really register with me and everybody that I kind of grew up playing with, so it has been some good changes, but I am not going to put anything on their plate that we haven’t talked about, or repped, or worked on in a meeting or worked on in the practice field.

Brian Costello, New York Post: The Instagram post about the U.S. Open with Novak (Djokovic), got some attention, just curious what was your motivation behind posting that?

Well, I am a big fan on Novak, and I got to see him in person, I took that photo and then realized that there was a little Moderna sign in the background. Novak is one of the most fit athletes in the world and I think anybody looking at the situation realizes how ridiculous to not allow him into the country with his level of fitness and the way he takes care of his body. Like him, I care about health, and I was just having a little bit of fun with it.

 

Rich Cimini, ESPN.com: Last year was statistically not up to your usual standard, is there a part of you going into this season that wants to prove that you are the same guy that won back-to-back MVPs just a couple years ago?

I mean every year you set personal goals and have an idea of how you would like to play and how it plays out, it doesn’t always work that way sometimes, its statically less than you think, sometimes its way more, just depends on how the flow of the game and what happens during red zone stuff and how good you are on situational football. But if you are doing well on third down and doing well in the red zone everything kind of takes care of itself. But I do set little personal goals, I don’t share them publicly, but I am not looking at this like I have to bounce back or do anything, I just got to play the way I know how to play, I have to work my *expletive* off for the last six months to try and put a better product on the field than last year and I expect to.