Jets first-year head coach Aaron Glenn and Packers coach Mike LaFleur said in the days before their teams' Saturday night meeting at Lambeau Field that they wanted to play their starters for a while against each other's team to kick off their preseason schedules.
But not all Jets first-stringers and big-name rookies got to suit up for this first game in the AG chapter of Jets football. The Green & White's Will Not Play list includes nine players on the active roster who did not travel to Wisconsin plus two more who remain on the Active/Physically Unable to Perform list:
- QB Tyrod Taylor (knee)
- WR/KR Xavier Gipson (shoulder)
- CB/ST Kris Boyd (shoulder)
- CB Azareye'h Thomas (shoulder)
- CB Jarrick Bernard-Converse
- G John Simpson (back)
- TE Mason Taylor (ankle)
- DL Byron Cowart (ankle)
- DL Quinnen Williams (calf)
- LB Jermaine Johnson (Active/PUP)
- WR/ST Irvin Charles (Active/PUP)
See the Jets arrive at Lambeau Field ahead of their preseason matchup against Green Bay Packers.
Slightly fewer than half of the NFL teams that played their preseason openers through Saturday afternoon put their starters on the field for some of those games. And the Jets had been among the teams cutting way back on exposing their veterans to preseason game injuries. Only two Jets who started in last year's preseason opener vs. Washington — C Joe Tippmann and DL Micheal Clemons — went on to start in the regular-season opener at San Francisco. Two players in 2023 also were "double opener" starters while the rest of the "ones" stayed on the sideline.
Glenn was direct about why he wanted his starters getting reps vs. the Packers: "I want our guys to play. That's the reason."
But as much as his decision has been about getting his 2025 players action into game situations, it could also be about AG's throwback mentality from his 15 seasons as an NFL cornerback, his first eight seasons spent with the Jets. Glenn started 120 of the Jets' 128 regular-season games while he was with them, and he also started 29 of their 32 preseason games in that span.
In the past 50 years, since 1975, the Jets have never had 22 "double starters" in a season — players who started in both the preseason and regular-season openers. The closest they came was 21 in 1994. That was Pete Carroll's only season as the Jets' head coach, and one of the players he started in both of those openers was first-round rookie CB Aaron Glenn.
