Aaron Rodgers’s Favorite Receiver Is Also the Jets’ Messenger

On the day the Jets traded for quarterback Aaron Rodgers in April, Randall Cobb posted a exercise video to Instagram.

Cobb, a receiver, had spent 10 of his 12 N.F.L. seasons as Rodgers’s teammate and shut good friend with the Green Bay Packers, however was by then a free agent recovering from surgical procedure on his proper ankle to clear bone spurs. Cobb stated he had preplanned to publish the video to showcase his well being as groups seemed to spherical out their rosters.

But, Cobb stated, different gamers teased him for the timing of the submit as a result of it appeared to sign that he needed to affix Rodgers with out blatantly saying so.

“It just happened to be on the same day,” Cobb, smiling, stated in an interview final week at his locker within the Jets’ apply facility.

Cobb, 33, had been contemplating retirement when the Jets signed him to a one-year contract simply over every week after the Rodgers commerce, and after the quarterback had recruited him. Reunited in New Jersey, Cobb has been a gauge of Rodgers’s moods and a messenger to Jets teammates for find out how to preserve him pleased.

That worth was on show in a current episode of “Hard Knocks,” the HBO documentary sequence, as Cobb huddled the Jets’ receivers after a poor apply and warned the group that Rodgers wouldn’t tolerate continued errors.

“If he don’t trust you, he’s not going to throw you the ball, I can promise you that,” Cobb stated. “If he don’t trust you — he do not like throwing interceptions — so if he can’t trust that you’re going to run the right route, he’s not going to throw it.”

“How he communicates to those guys has been amazing for them in that room,” stated Nathaniel Hackett, the Jets’ offensive coordinator. Hackett held the identical place for 3 seasons with the Packers, the place he coached Cobb and Rodgers in 2021. “I think they are only going to get better, just with him being in there and the fact that we get to have him out there playing for us is great.”

There are few individuals who know Rodgers higher on and off the sector. Cobb has lengthy been one of many quarterback’s most trusted passing choices, normally catching tosses out of the slot place. Rodgers was a groomsman at Cobb’s marriage ceremony in 2017 and is godfather to one among his two kids.

Cobb and Allen Lazard, 27, one other former Packers receiver, are anticipated to play complementary roles within the Jets’ offense, whose success will depend upon the event of receiver Garrett Wilson, 23, final season’s offensive rookie of the yr, and Mecole Hardman, 25, a free-agent addition who spent his first 4 N.F.L. seasons with Kansas City. Cobb stated he may act as an middleman and assist teammates alter to their new quarterback’s persona and tendencies.

“I try to be the bridge of communication,” Cobb stated. “We’re all visual and audio learners, and just being able to see if a guy needs help, you can help them understand it in a different way.”

Cobb stated he has tried to evangelise to the receiving corps the significance of nonverbal communication earlier than the snap, and emphasised that they need to perceive every element of a play as a substitute of simply their function in it. For instance, on a aim line play final December, the rookie Christian Watson missed a hand sign from Rodgers, ran the mistaken route and missed out on a simple landing reception in opposition to the Los Angeles Rams. Cobb stated receivers earn Rodgers’s favor by being in the appropriate place on the proper time.

“He’s just very detail-oriented,” Cobb stated. “He does a great job of taking care of the ball, and if we’re not on the same page, that can lead to two interceptions and puts us behind the eight ball and a chance to win the game.”

Rodgers, although, has labored to type connections with teammates with out Cobb’s direct assist. He stated in July that he ate lunch at totally different tables all through the week in order to not sit with the identical gamers, including that he visited totally different areas of apply when he was not taking reps to familiarize himself with totally different place teams. Wilson stated Rodgers has been talkative and approachable, however he additionally welcomed studying from Cobb.

“I’ve just been trying to take everything I can from Randall,” Wilson stated Friday in a news convention. “He’s a perfectionist when it comes to everything off the field.”

Having Cobb round has additionally been a boon to Rodgers in different areas. Playing collectively in a brand new metropolis, the pair, together with different teammates, have been intentional about bonding at social occasions. Last week, Cobb, Rodgers and tight finish C.J. Uzomah attended a tennis match on the U.S. Open, and the three have gone with different teammates to Broadway exhibits.

Rodgers and Uzomah attended the Tony Awards in June, and the quarterback watched a Knicks playoff sport with cornerback Sauce Gardner from courtside seats in May.

Cobb stated the vibrancy and bustle of taking part in for the Jets provided a special expertise than Rodgers had been uncovered to throughout the soccer season. After Packers video games, as an illustration, Cobb stated he and his household would usually order pizza as a result of most different eating places had been closed. Not so within the New York metropolitan space.

“It’s not like the N.F.L. life that you imagine in your mind,” Cobb stated of dwelling in Green Bay, Wis. “I think that he’s able to live and enjoy life with a different perspective that he hasn’t had in his career yet.”