According to a former Green Bay wideout, Aaron Rodgers will use disrespect as motivation entering the 2025 NFL season. In all honesty, the trope of every football player since the days of leather helmets using ungracious behavior as fuel happens every year. Whether the slight happened or remains a figment of imagination, the result does not change.
Athletes, crossing all borders of athletic endeavor, need some internal fuel to take their performance to the next level. Granted, money, in a perfect world, should provide all of the incentives needed to play hard. Still, when an athlete flips the metaphorical switch to lock in and focus, they need a catalyst.
For the future Hall of Famer, Week 1 with the team many predict he will sign with, the Pittsburgh Steelers, offers something that no other team can: vengeance.
Aaron Rodgers Could Eye Payback Against Jets in Week 1
Rodgers defies any sort of definition regarding how his personality balances out his style of play. The NFL made billions on gameplay that intertwined with the idiosyncratic nature of its athletes; the Future Hall of Fame remains an original. Whether the media or team management wants to hear his opinion or not, Rodgers will uniquely speak his mind.
When the New York Jets asked him to fly across the country to inform him of his release, that did not sit well. The legendary quarterback did not leave New York on the best of terms. Now, with the opportunity to play his former team, an ex-teammate believes that Rodgers will be more than ready. For eight seasons, wideout James Jones played alongside the quarterback.
Starting 62 games for the Packers, Jones gained an understanding of how the mercurial passer thinks. On his FS1 show, “The Facility,” Jones believes that Rodgers will use his unhappiness with the Jets’ release as a reason to go enjoy a big day, embarrassing them in the process.
.@89JonesNTAF says Aaron Rodgers should have extra motivation to sign with the Steelers:
“He should be juiced up over the way the Jets disrespected him.” pic.twitter.com/bGlHrbOMzF
— The Facility (@TheFacilityFS1) May 16, 2025
“Aaron should be sitting at the crib right now or walking on the beach right now, whatever my dog is doing right now, and he should be juiced up with this schedule,” Jones said. “This Jets stuff, the way they disrespected him leaving out there, listen, ‘We did not have success as a team, right? I was fresh off an Achilles, I gave y’all the best I had, fresh off of the Achilles, the thing didn’t go the way we wanted it to go. All good.’
“But for me to fly there and for you to meet with me for five minutes and tell me we’re going another direction and disrespect me the way you disrespect me? Four-time MVP, Super Bowl champion, the way you treated me on my exit out of there, oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I’ma come back in this building, and Aaron Glenn, you think you that dude? I’m finna show you that you messed up, and I still could play this game at a high level.”
Now, a couple of thoughts bubble to mind. First, wouldn’t playing as a member of a new team provide enough motivation to excel in the season opening? The Jets did not end things on the best of terms. However, they are also the same organization that moved mountains to stack the roster with players that Rodgers wanted, like Randall Cobb, Davante Adams, and Allen Lazard.
In a battle between the quarterback and former head coach Robert Saleh, the team chose Rodgers. With that said, the news of a release should not be met with such animus. Remember, the team hired Aaron Glenn, a former Jets cornerback who made two Pro Bowls while wearing their signature green.
Rodgers was not Glenn’s choice, so no loyalty exists between the two. The rookie head coach chose to take the team in a different direction. Will Aaron Rodgers’ play be enhanced over a slight? Only he knows that for sure. Meanwhile, his potential teammates in Pittsburgh just want to win the game and probably will not buy into the hype.