Aaron Rodgers ’ return to the New York Jets has coincided with an unsavory battle within the team as Haason Reddick is reportedly not planning to report to training camp.
Rodgers had been absent from the Jets preseason work before making his return on Tuesday. But the Jets now have another issue to deal with regarding Reddick’s protest demanding a new contract.
Reddick only arrived at the Jets this offseason but has already signaled his intention to go on strike in a bid to have his contract terms upgraded. The 29-year-old is in the final year of his contract and is set to earn $14.5 million this season, but the defensive end is seemingly ready to protest for an improved deal.
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After being traded to the Jets from the Philadelphia Eagles in April for a conditional third-round selection in the 2026 draft, Reddick has skipped the entire offseason program. The Jets are said to be surprised by the player’s stance despite Reddick’s team making it clear before the trade that he wanted a new contract.
Reddick signed a three-year, $45m contract with the Eagles in 2022, and he went on to record 50.5 sacks over the last four seasons, the fourth-highest in the NFL . At the time of the trade, the Jets thought that Reddick was content to play out the final year of his contract and hit free agency.
But evidently both sides have confused the situation somewhere along the line and the issue threatens to get pretty awkward. Reddick looked poised to start for the Jets after sack leader Bryce Huff joined the Eagles in free agency and defensive end John Franklin-Myers was traded to the Denver Broncos .
Meanwhile, in a somewhat revolving door day for the Jets, Rodgers returned to training camp on Tuesday having been absent from the team’s preseason work so far. His omission sparked more murmurs of retirement, but the 40-year-old insisted during his recent appearance on "Pardon My Take" that he would participate in the upcoming season when asked about retirement.
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. This one for sure. I’d like to do — I wanted to do two good ones and get a chance to retire a Jet. You know, win two Super Bowls,” he replied.
The Green Bay Packers legend missed all the minicamps last week before returning to Jets training. Rodgers explained his reasons behind skipping the mandatory period in a rant about the current organized training activities and minicamp schedule on the podcast.
"The thing that people don't understand was that when I was in the NFC North years ago there used to be a real thing called minicamp where it was … it was five practices in three days," Rodgers added. "Now it's not minicamp. They can arbitrarily put a tag on whatever week of OTAs they want and say this is the minicamp week which makes it more mandatory than the other weeks.
“But it was an OTA schedule. That's how words can be a little deceiving from time to time. It can make a story about how I missed a minicamp when it was really two OTA days. I came to the first 10."
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