Hard Knocks Jets is all about Aaron Rodgers, football’s biggest weirdo

It’s the New York Jets that are causing a stir this summer. Thanks to the busy off-season, and the highest expectations the fans have had in many years. It’s also the team HBO has decided to follow for its annual Hard Knocks docuseries.

Aaron Rodgers, an elite quarterback who is now a Jets player, will join a 2022 rookie team that has been preparing to play a larger role for the Jets. It’s incredibly strange. Rodgers is not only one of the NFL’s best players, but also one of its weirdest dudes, with behavior that ranges from the somewhat silly (a four-day stay in a pitch-black cave to figure out whether he wanted to keep playing pro football) to the downright unethical (misleading NFL officials about his COVID vaccination status). It turns out that this combination is fascinating. Hard KnocksStart the season off right.

As with most seasons, Hard Knocks, the 2023 iteration starts by introducing the audience to some of the team’s most exciting players, who we’ll be following over the next few weeks. Unlike previous seasons, where the show is more about the entire team, there’s no attempt at all to hide the fact that this year is the Aaron Rodgers show. Everyone, including the fans in attendance to see his first practice, to his teammates has a seat.

Rodgers’s season is a lens that focuses on every aspect of the game. Hard KnocksIt is focused. Coaches and teammates are often introduced to the viewer when they first meet Rodgers — sometimes by saying that they’ve been fans of his since elementary school. Other times we get side conversations from groups of players talking about their admiration for their new QB both on and off the field: “Whatever they say about Aaron Rodgers on TV is a lie,” as defensive lineman Al Woods puts it.

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Rodgers will always be mentioned, even when the focus is on another person. In the second episode, a magic show culminates in a trick that surprisingly includes the team’s star QB, throwing the whole team into pandemonium as the magician claims to read Rodgers’ mind — an implication Rodgers doesn’t seem to take kindly to.

The funniest part of this dynamic comes when Rodgers starts rambling about Nathaniel Hackett who coached Rodgers as a Green Bay Packer. Hackett is said to have compared almost all of the practice activities to a game. Austin Powers Goldmember, somehow. As it turns out, the somewhat former Broncos head coach loves the movie, and is convinced it’s a seminal text on how to play football — right down to renaming the Red Zone the Gold Zone.

Similarly strange and hilarious is Rodgers’ unabashed love of Hard KnocksNarrator Liev Schireiber makes his first appearance in the 17-year history of the series, as he visits a camp for training. Schreiber, who Rodgers can’t stop calling “the voice of God,” strolls around camp, seeming to have both a great and very awkward time, wandering around the field as people mostly avoid him. Rodgers follows Hackett for several minutes, demanding that he meet Schreiber.

It’s both extremely funny behavior, and somehow (even more hilariously) doesn’t do a damn thing to humanize Rodgers or distract from his offseason headlines, which included things like the previously mentioned cave retreat and being a very public proponent of psychedelic drug use. This makes for great television.

Even more interesting than Rodgers’ continued antics, however, are the storylines from some of the other players the show highlights. The first episode’s real standout is cornerback Sauce Gardner, who left college early last year to play in the NFL and immediately became one of the best in the league at his position. The one caveat to his early departure from the University of Cincinnati was that he promised his grandma that he’d return to school and graduate, a ceremony we get to see in the show.

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The show finds just as much good-natured heart in Sauce’s time on the field as off, though. The most obvious example of this is his rivalry and friendship, both competitive and friendly, with another outstanding second-year football player Garrett Wilson. Wilson, a Jets wide receiver, is always lining up one against one and playing each play one-on one.

• Wilson and Gardner provide welcome relief from Rodgers and his entourage. They also help to keep things moving. Hard Knocks’ latest season focused on football. One thing the show hasn’t focused much on yet are the peripheral players desperate to make the team’s final roster. They are some of most interesting and compelling stories. Hard KnockSo far, they feel like their attention is focused on celebrities and that keeps them in the background. But with only two episodes down, there’s still plenty of time to give smaller players their due. The Aaron Rodgers Show is already entertaining on its own.