On Saturday, Aaron Rodgers reemerged to attend UFC 303. This was his first public appearance since he ditched the New York Jets mandatory minicamp earlier last month.
Rodgers Attends UFC 303 After Ditching Minicamp
Fox News reported that Rodgers, 40, was seen cageside at UFC 303 in Las Vegas on Saturday night. He was spotted with his former Green Bay Packers teammate, tight end “Big Dog” Marcedes Lewis, who now plays for the Chicago Bears.
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Rodgers Ditches Minicamp
Rodgers shocked everyone last month when the star Jets quarterback was absent from his team’s mandatory minicamp that was held from June 11-13. Jets head coach Robert Saleh described it as an “unexcused absence,” which led to backlash against Rodgers from the media.
Saleh, however, has since tried to downplay the situation.
“Aaron and I are on the exact same page,” Saleh said earlier in June. “There’s no issue between Aaron (and me]) or his teammates, for that matter. We addressed it (Tuesday). It’s more of an issue for everyone outside the building than it is inside. That’s about it.”
Buffalo Bills wide receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling, who was also a previous teammate of Rodgers’ on the Packers, revealed on “The Herd” last Thursday that he had just worked out with the quarterback in Los Angeles.
“Me and Aaron have been great friends since I’ve been in Green Bay. I hit him up, told him I was coming out to L.A., and said, ‘Let’s run some routes,'” Valdes-Scantling recalled. “So, we got it in, went out to some high school, and ran some routes together. We’re good. It was good.”
Host Jason McIntyre responded by pointing out that Rodgers just returned from a “trip to Egypt.”
“All the New York media can stand down,” he said. “Aaron Rodgers is back from Egypt! It’s not a secret anymore!”
Related: Former Packers Player Amari Rodgers Blames Aaron Rodgers For His Failures
Julian Edelman Weighs In
The former New England Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman, however, was quick to slam Rodgers for missing the mandatory minicamp.
“I think it’s a bad look for your leader, for whatever reason, to go and miss an unexcused absence,” Edelman said, adding that he “was with Tom Brady in his 25th year or 23rd year, and he started missing [voluntary] OTAs here and there, but he never missed a mandatory minicamp. I just thought it was a bad look.”
“I’m a big Aaron Rodgers fan, but if I was in that locker room and Aaron Rodgers wasn’t there for three days on the mandatory minicamp, having played four snaps off of an injury when we have two new receivers [and] a bunch of new linemen that we added to the team, with a CBA that doesn’t allow us to practice a lot?” he continued. “I guarantee there’s four or five guys — six, seven, eight, nine guys in that locker room — sitting there like, ‘Where’s he at?”
Check out Edelman’s full comments on that in the video below.
Rodgers had previously attended UFC 302 earlier in the month of June, according to Daily Mail.
Rodgers was the Jets’ biggest acquisition last year. However, he only played in four snaps before he tore his Achilles. This upcoming NFL season is meant to be Rodgers chance to show Jets fans what he’s really got. Only time will tell if he is able to do that after ditching this minicamp!
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