The sports media world is reacting to the second episode of Hard Knocks as the kickoff of the National Football League season rapidly approaches. This year’s edition, which is taking place from New York Jets training camp, has largely been focused on the impact of new quarterback Aaron Rodgers as the team tries to change the narrative and snap a 12-year playoff drought. Boomer Esiason and Gregg Giannotti have watched the first two episodes of the show before their morning program so they are able to react to it on the air.
Tuesday’s edition started with a performance by mentalist Oz Pearlman, who was on hand in the Jets meeting room in Florham Park, N.J. to entertain the team and get inside their heads. Pearlman’s presentation took up about the first seven minutes of the episode, and in the end, he left the team and viewers of the show speechless.
“There’s no way that this man is a sorcerer,” Giannotti said on Wednesday’s edition of Boomer & Gio on WFAN. “There has to be some sort of way that he’s doing it and tricking us and he’s very good at it.”
Esiason, as a former NFL star, discussed the hackneyed nature of training camp, especially for older players. As time goes on, frustration grows as the team becomes more eager to take the field and showcase their skills against an opponent in a legitimate game. Throughout the episode, there were moments of vexation, highlighted by head coach Robert Saleh calling out the team’s offensive line in a meeting. Outside of the episode though, Rodgers demonstrated these sentiments, ironically enough in an interview the day prior with Esiason and Giannotti.
“All these other times that I’ve seen him, he’s been pretty much zen and he’s been kind of calm and he’s doing all these things you would expect from a guy who’s on a spiritual journey,” Giannotti said. “Then the tri-state area traffic kicks him right in the nuts and all that’s out the window.”
Giannotti opened the show by wondering whether or not their show brought the Jets misfortune, discerning that the team struggled on the field and endured various concomitant events. Of course, more of this may be displayed on next week’s edition of Hard Knocks, but for now, the morning show believes it could be part of the problem.
“Alijah Vera-Tucker, who is sitting next to us and I stand up and I put my arm around him – we were comparing sizes because I was a guard at one point in my life – he has an ankle injury some time after the interview, I guess, because he looked totally fine when he was with us,” Giannotti explained.
“I don’t know when that happened. And then Aaron Rodgers goes out after we talk to him and has the worst day he’s had as a Jet at practice this year. I’m blaming the traffic on that one – that to me was all about the traffic – but I’m afraid that we had some negative juju in that building yesterday.”
Esiason, who was the Jets quarterback for three seasons, can understand what Rodgers is going through as an athlete in the No. 1 media market in the world. On top of becoming acclimated with a new team and city, he consistently has cameras following him around and is participating in interviews.
In fact, the show estimated that they were part of a thousand interviews he has had since coming to the Jets. Rodgers demonstrating a sense of annoyance is an aberration from the persona he has brought to New York thus far, but it is evident just by being in the building and metropolitan area that he and his football team are squarely at the center of the sports universe.
“He’s soaking it all in – and I would be doing the same thing if I were him – but ultimately it’s going to come down to that opening night against Buffalo, and it’s going to be real,” Esiason said. “All of this great feeling and all this stuff around him has got to perform on the field. It’s got to show itself on the field, and hopefully they get off to a good start.”
