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OFFICIAL | Jets Acquire QB Aaron Rodgers From Green Bay Packers

Four-Time NFL MVP Will Suit Up for the Green & White in 2023 Season

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The New York Jets have finalized a trade with the Green Bay Packers that will bring four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers to the Green & White.

In addition to Rodgers, the Jets will acquire the Packers' first-round pick (No. 15 overall) and a fifth-round pick (No. 170) in this weekend's draft in exchange for three 2023 picks -- No. 13 (Round 1), No. 42 (Round 2) and No. 207 (Round 6) -- and a conditional second-round pick in 2024 that can become a first-round pick if Rodgers plays 65 percent of the plays.

"Obviously, we're comfortable with how this deal shaped," Jets GM Joe Douglas said Tuesday. "I don't think anyone ever walks away from a negotiation where you feel like you won everything in terms of what's gone back and forth. But ultimately, our goal from the beginning was to add Aaron to the team, so we were able to get that. We agreed to terms yesterday and we're just excited to bring him here."

A Packer from 2005-22, Rodgers is one of the most prolific passers in NFL history. The four-time first-team All-Pro (2011, 2014, 2020 and 2021) and 10-time Pro Bowler is No. 1 with a TD-to-INT ratio of 4.52 (475 to 105) and he is No. 2 in passer rating (103.6). Rodgers became the fastest to reach 300 TD passes (144 games) and 400 TD passes (192 games).

During an appearance on the Pat McAfee show this week, Rodgers said: "At this point, as I sit here, I think since Friday I've made it clear that my intention was to play and my intention was to play for the New York Jets."

After the Jets finished their 2022 campaign, Jets HC Robert Saleh said that the team was committed to finding a veteran QB and Chairman Woody Johnson called quarterback the missing piece for a team that improved its win total by three games from 2021.

In New York, Rodgers will reunite with new Jets OC Nathaniel Hackett. With Hackett serving as the Packers' OC from 2019-21, Rodgers averaged 4,139 pass yards and totaled 111 TD passes and 13 INTs in 48 games. He was named back-to-back MVP in 2020-21 while producing the two best completion percentage seasons of his career (70.7 and 68.9). In the red zone, Rodgers and Hackett helped the Pack rank second with a TD percentage of 67.2.

"He's become such a close confidant and friend, besides a fantastic coach," Rodgers said of Hackett in 2020. "And I just really, really can't express enough how important he is to our team in so many ways. He's incredible in front of a room, he brings a lot of great energy that's really important to not just meetings that can sometimes, without the energy, the energy he infuses, maybe get long at times. [It] never feels like that way with him in front of the room."

Starting 17 games last season for the Packers, Rodgers connected on 64.6% of his passes for 3,695 yards with 26 TDs and 12 INTs. He posted those numbers despite sustaining an avulsion fracture to his throwing thumb in Week 5. Rodgers also played through ribs and knee injuries.

"He's not very far removed from back-to-back MVPs," Douglas said. "You still have someone that maybe didn't play at 100 percent throughout the year but still performed at a high level. ... His relationship with Nathaniel and some of the other players that are on the team, we feel obviously that it's an adjustment when you're somewhere for 18 years. But we feel with the people we have in place, he can get comfortable quickly."

One of the Jets' most impressive wins in 2022 came against Rodgers and the Packers at Lambeau Field in Week 6. They scored a 27-10 triumph as Rodgers completed 26 of 41 for 246 yards with 1 TD. He was sacked 4 times.

"Hall of Fame quarterback," said Saleh in the lead-up to the game. "He's a special talent obviously. He gets the ball where it needs to go, he gets it there quick, can change the play at the line of scrimmage, he makes everyone around him better, he challenges you from a defensive standpoint to substitutions to everything, so, he's obviously deserving of everything he's gotten in his life."

See images of the four-time MVP arriving at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center.

Rodgers will join a team that boasts a stout defensive unit that finished No. 4 in the NFL in scoring (18.6 pts/g) and No. 2 in both yards per play (4.84) and yards per pass play (5.79). The Jets started three different quarterbacks last season and finished 29th in scoring (17.4 pts/g), 25th in total yards (318.2 yds/g) and 27th in pass yards per play (5.94). But the Jets have talented young players on a unit that featured Offensive Rookie of the Year Garrett Wilson and saw OL Alijah-Vera Tucker and RB Breece Hall star before sustaining season-ending injuries in Week 7.

Already equipped with elite performers on defense including Defensive Rookie of the Year Sauce Gardner, Pro Bowlers Quinnen Williams and C.J. Mosley, in addition to Gardner's partner at corner in D.J. Reed, the Jets targeted a veteran signal-caller to lead their offense. In Rodgers, they got one of the best ever. His NFL-high marks include single-season passer rating of 122.5 (2011), consecutive passes without an interception (402), lowest career INT percentage (1.4%)and lowest interception percent in a season (0.3% in 2018).

"You can have a tight window with Aaron and Aaron's still going to find a way to get it in there," Saleh said of him in October. "That's the challenge, you can have coverage and if you think that you're in a good spot, whether you're in zone or whatever it is, Aaron's going to find the hole to get it to him. So just completely be alert, don't fall asleep on the down, don't think that just because your body position will tell normal quarterbacks that this play is over — he'll find a way to make you pay."

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