


Aaron Rodgers became a mentor for Zach Wilson throughout the summer.
Their relationship was captured throughout the five episodes of HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” in which Wilson could be seen joking with Rodgers about his wired headphones instead of AirPods and Rodgers was shown messing with Wilson about his headband.
Rodgers wanted to help Wilson throughout the season as the young quarterback reset his career from starter to backup.
The plan, however, wasn’t for Rodgers to be injured just four snaps into the Jets’ season and for Wilson to become the starter again for the foreseeable future.
“I’m very confident in Zach,” Rodgers said on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Friday, “and I think he’s confident in himself, which is the most important thing. It was an important offseason for him.
“Very important, I think, to get his confidence back and to be able to work on some of the little fundamental things that I think you’ve seen show up in the preseason and obviously the other night on Monday.”
Rodgers didn’t rule out finding a way to secure a headset and contribute suggestions throughout the season, though.
During the Jets’ first preseason game against the Browns, Rodgers donned the headset and told Wilson, who was starting the game, that he should throw the ball to the outside.
Sure, enough, Wilson fired a bomb down the far side of the field and it went for a 57-yard completion.
“Great call by Aaron Rodgers,” Wilson told reporters with a big smile after the game. “Had to give him a little shout out there.”
Wilson told reporters earlier this week that now he has to start making the right decisions to keep the Jets in the mix.
“It’s trusting the guys around me,” Wilson said. “They’ve shown this past week how explosive, how dynamic, guys are. Relying on this good defense we have. I think it’s going out there, taking it one play at a time, trusting in my footwork, trusting in what the coaches have been talking about, and we’ll go from there.”