Aaron Rodgers calls Jets training camp his hardest ‘in last seven or eight’ years

Aaron Rodgers got a heads-up before training camp.

He knew coach Robert Saleh wanted to have a more strenuous, difficult summer that would test the Jets — and specifically their starters.

There are risks with that approach.

One viewpoint, Rodgers said, is that it puts strain on players. It could get blamed for injuries.

But the counter to that paints the strategy as one that would allow the Jets to get more prepared.

Rodgers called this the hardest training camp “in the last seven or eight [years] of my career,” and Saleh told him recently that starters were “somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 more reps” at this point of camp than in 2023.

“And it feels like it,” Rodgers said Tuesday. “But it’s good. I think it’s gonna allow us to maybe be a little more ready. We’ve been fortunate with injuries. We haven’t had a ton of injuries so far, so I like it. It’s been great. You talk to the older guys, not a lot of complaints from any of those guys. Young guys don’t know any better.”

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The results of Saleh’s strategy might not be clear by the end of Week 1, when the Jets open against the 49ers on Sept. 9.

It might take until the end of the regular season, the end of a playoff run — if there is one — or the time of year when the Jets look back and evaluate what went right and, perhaps more importantly, what went wrong.

In the meantime, Rodgers and the starters have been the focal point of camp sessions.

They’ve had efficient ones that flashed the potential of a unit featuring Rodgers, Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall.

They’ve also had others that veer toward mirroring the disjointed stretches that filled Monday’s practice.

At the crux of everything, though, has been the sheer number of reps.

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That remained the same in the joint practice with the Panthers — Rodgers didn’t participate in the joint practice with the Commanders due to the weather — and will likely carry over Wednesday, when the Giants make the trip to Florham Park.

So Rodgers has logged all the rollouts and the pump-fakes he could want.

He has extended the plays, gotten some extra yards, replicated just about everything he could want to replicate in a preseason game, outside of taking a hit.

That’ll remain the final hurdle every season.

But that’s perhaps even more significant this summer, with Rodgers navigating the final stages of his recovery from a torn Achilles that — to this point — has unfolded as smoothly as the Jets could’ve scripted.

Still, Rodgers said Tuesday that he doesn’t have a preference about playing Saturday against the Giants.

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That’s up to Saleh, who hasn’t announced a decision.

“First time you get kind of rocked, then it feels like, ‘OK, I’m good,’ ” Rodgers said. “You’re not really gonna get rocked in the preseason, because even if we play a series or two, it’s not like there’s gonna be plays where I’m holding onto the football for a long time or anything. So there’s probably more risk of getting rocked in a practice.”

With starters resting during team periods Tuesday, it meant that the offense didn’t have a chance to respond after its brutal showing Monday, when Rodgers completed just 11 of 27 passes and ended the day with an interception to safety Tony Adams.

It was the rare instance this preseason when there wasn’t rep after rep after rep — all the way up to 300 extra — reserved for the starters.

But Rodgers said the Jets needed a practice like Monday. Sometimes, it helps to have mistakes that can be corrected — “a coach’s dream,” he said — then referenced in the future. They’re “anchor points,” Rodgers said.

And a training camp that, by the end of it, might be defined by the number of reps taken by the starters has left plenty of opportunities for those to emerge.

“Some of [the mistakes] are stuff that I feel like we should know,” Rodgers said of Monday’s session. “There’s plenty of excuses we could give about 4 o’clock bedtime Sunday morning and all this and that and pads and all these different things.

“But at the end of the day, we’re getting stressed in a way that us old guys, we haven’t been stressed in a while. I think it’s good for us.”

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