Over the next three days, the Jets will conclude their offseason program with a three day minicamp.
This is the one mandatory portion of the offseason practice schedule. Up until this point, the offseason program has been completely voluntary, meaning teams could not fine players for not showing up. Sometimes teams will put incentives in a player’s contract to convince him to come, but they cannot force him to do so. The Jets have reportedly had excellent attendance, in excess of 90 percent, for most of their offseason program anyway.
This year’s minicamp figures to be much quieter than last year’s. There were two noticeable absence in 2024, Aaron Rodgers and Haason Reddick.
Rodgers was on a vacation in Egypt. It generated plenty of headlines, but I have always frankly thought that storyline was overrated. Rodgers’ trip to Egypt had nothing to do with why the Jets were bad a year ago.
Reddick missed minicamp over his contract status. It was the start of a long holdout. That obviously was not overrated. The Jets got pretty much nothing from the trade, and this was the first real indication things were headed in a very negative direction.
This year we can expect less drama. Some of the key things to listen for are early reviews on training camp position battles, the progress of developing young players, and insights from the coaches on what they value at specific positions.