Oh, to be a new New Yorker––before the hustle gives way to cynicism and the mounting weight of expectations crushes the spirit. There is something enchanting about that period, just upon arrival, when the possibilities seem endless.

Aaron Rodgers can attest to that.

After beginning his offseason with a much-publicized darkness retreat––a four-day stint at a secluded facility in Oregon where he contemplated his future in the NFL––Rodgers has spent his spring basking in the bright lights of the city. “Everything is new,” Rodgers told Pat McAfee. “It’s like the first day of school every day.” In the seven weeks since he was officially unveiled as a member of the New York Jets, he’s become the city’s most prominent sightseer, gallivanting around with all the enthusiasm of someone in a freshly purchased “I Love NY” T-shirt.

Maybe you saw him at the New York Rangers playoff game in late April, or the following afternoon, when he returned to Madison Square Garden for the Knicks’ postseason matinee. He was courtside at the Garden again two days after that for another Knicks game, this time with Jets star cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner. (The New York Post reported that the two dined at Carbone prior to tip-off.) Eagle-eyed paparazzi spotted Rodgers shopping in NoHo with friends last month, hours before he ventured to his new home stadium to take in a Taylor Swift concert with actor Miles Teller. A few days later, Rodgers hit Broadway, attending a showing of Wicked at the Gershwin Theatre with C.J. Uzomah, Tim Boyle, and Chris Streveler. He and Uzomah then attended the Tonys on Sunday.

Even before taking a snap, Rodgers has breathed new life into a moribund franchise and provided fodder for the city’s star-hungry sports scene. A perennial afterthought, the Jets have become the hottest ticket in town and one of the biggest storylines in the NFL. Reporters have flocked to the team’s practice facility in Florham Park, New Jersey, in recent weeks to catch a glimpse of Rodgers during the Jets’ offseason workouts, rejuvenating what could be a lackluster beat. The city’s always-on tabloids have feverishly documented sightings of Rodgers, with the the Post even publishing a handy map of his whereabouts (e.g., “Shopping at Rag & Bone”).

Rodgers’s place in NFL history was already firmly secured, and his star burned bright without the luminosity of New York. In his career with the Green Bay Packers, he won four Most Valuable Player awards and a Super Bowl championship. And Rodgers, a former guest host on “Jeopardy” whose dating history includes actors Olivia Munn and Shailene Woodley, is already one of the most famous athletes in all of sports. But his time with the Jets still presents a legacy-defining opportunity: to lead the team to its first title in more than a half-century would make him a New York icon, and a hero to a long-suffering fan base. Though his Jets tenure will be determined by what he does on the field, what he’s so far done off it may help smooth the transition to a city that is perfectly willing to boo its biggest stars.

“He obviously is consciously wanting to be seen around town,” said Mike Francesa, the longtime New York sports radio host who now hosts a podcast on the BetRivers Network. Francesa marveled that Rodgers has “been at everything”––even the Swift concert “that was mostly a bunch of teenage girls.”

“I mean, he has been a very, very visible presence in New York,” Francesa told me. “Now, I haven’t spoken to him, and I don’t know him that well anyway, but I have to believe this was a very conscious effort on his part to do this. I think he understands what this means. He clearly knows how to play the game. He understands how to play the media. He understands what his presence will mean. I think he wants to make a big splash.”

Rodgers has done his homework too. He told SiriusXM host Adam Schein last month that he had brushed up on local sporting lore by watching Once Upon a Time in Queens, the ESPN documentary on the New York Mets’ 1986 World Series run. “I think you have to take your mind there,” Rodgers said in the interview, “so you can start to understand the manifestation of these dreams and thoughts.

“You can be a star in Green Bay. You no longer have to come to New York to be a star,” Francesa said. “But when you do it in New York, it’s bigger.”

In going from Green Bay to New York, Rodgers is making the leap from the NFL’s smallest market to the biggest. And he will also be going from one of the league’s most storied franchises to one of the most tortured. The Packers ooze history, with four Super Bowl titles to their name and a roster of legends in their record books. They have also been a model of consistency. In Rodgers’s 15 seasons as starting quarterback, the Packers missed the playoffs only four times. The Jets reside on the opposite end of the NFL hierarchy. Since Joe Namath’s fabled Super Bowl win in 1969, the team has been mired in futility and false dawns. The Jets have not made the postseason since 2010, the longest playoff drought in American sports. In particular, they’ve shown both instability and ineptitude in the quarterback position, with 13 different starters during this period. 

“The Jets have never recovered what they had with Namath. Ever. They’ve never broached it again,” Francesa said. “They now have someone who could do that, who could be that kind of transcendent star.”

Rodgers, who will turn 40 in December, appears reenergized by his new surroundings. After a listless final season with the Packers in which the team failed to make the playoffs, Rodgers flirted with retirement. Only a year removed from winning the second of his back-to-back MVP awards, 2022 was the worst season of Rodgers’s career. He said later that he was “90 percent retired” when he entered the darkness retreat in February.

But by March, Rodgers decided he was ready to suit up once again, publicly expressing his desire to play for the Jets in an interview with McAfee. (Rodgers declined an interview request from Vanity Fair through his agent.) And since being traded in April, Rodgers has embraced the role of savior for his new team. He invited Jets fans to dream big at his introductory press conference, invoking the halcyon days of Namath and saying that the team’s sole Lombardi Trophy looks “a little lonely.” After forgoing voluntary offseason practices with the Packers in recent years, Rodgers attended each one held by the Jets.

“The last six weeks have been about the most fun I've had in a while," Rodgers told reporters last week, after the team wrapped its final practice before training camp later in the summer.

The Jets’ feelings are mutual. Since Rodgers declared his intention to play for the Jets in March, the team says it has seen a 250% spike in new season ticket sales. New season ticket and luxury suite sales have also increased by 400% over last year’s, while season ticket renewals are up 95%. Jets owner Woody Johnson posted a video on Twitter in early May of staffers ringing a bell to celebrate each new sale.

Rodgers has also triggered a surge in national interest toward a team that rarely draws much attention outside the tristate area. The NFL schedule-makers put the Jets in six prime-time games this year, the maximum number allotted for any team. (They will kick off the new season at home against division rival Buffalo on Monday Night Football.) And his arrival has been a boon to local media. The Post has published at least 200 Rodgers-related headlines in the past three months.

The coverage has not been confined to the sports desk. “Potential future Jet Aaron Rodgers gets offer he can’t refuse—dinner at Rao’s,” read a headline in the paper’s metro section. Zachary Kussin, the Post’s real estate editor, said his reporters are currently chasing what has thus far proved to be an elusive scoop. “We haven’t been able to track down where he’s going to live, even if he’s been looking anywhere,” Kussin told me. The Mirror, a British tabloid, ran a cursory story in April claiming that Rodgers had purchased a $4 million apartment in Manhattan, but Kussin said the Post was unable to confirm. Rodgers himself said last month that he was staying in a hotel near the Jets’ facility.

“We have it on our radar for sure, so maybe it’s a slow burn,” Kussin said. “One of my reporters is worried he’s renting, something that isn’t documented in public city records like purchases are.”

He may, in fact, be hotel-hopping. In a stroke of happenstance, a friend of mine met Rodgers on Sunday as he was checking in at the Bowery Hotel.

Reporters who cover the Jets full time are anticipating a season unlike any other. “It’s definitely going to be a circus here,” said Zack Rosenblatt, who covers the Jets for The Athletic. The Rodgers effect has been felt immediately at the team facility in Florham Park, where a decidedly larger media presence showed up for Jets practices this spring. “Never before have #Jets [offseason team activities] been Must Watch TV!” WNBC anchor Bruce Beck tweeted last week.

Rosenblatt said there didn’t used to be much competition for parking spots or seats at press conferences––but that was life before Rodgers. “Goddamn,” said Uzomah, the team’s tight end, last month after noticing the swell of reporters waiting for him. Not that Rosenblatt is complaining. The heightened interest in the team has meant more attention for his work. After the Rodgers trade was made official, Rosenblatt said he received a flood of requests to appear on television.“I think Aaron Rodgers is good for business,” Rosenblatt said.

Rodgers is known to be engaging and generous with his time in postgame pressers and gaggles with reporters, a reputation he’s lived up to so far with the Jets. Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, who dominated New York’s airwaves with Francesa for years, believes that will help him navigate New York’s often treacherous media waters.

“Rodgers is very good with the media, and this is after losses,” said Russo, who now hosts a show on SiriusXM. “He gives you 15 minutes. He’s thoughtful with his answers. He doesn’t blow anybody off.

“He does his media responsibilities. That’ll help him a little bit.”

But Rodgers has typically saved his most newsworthy comments for McAfee, the energetic host who just signed a lucrative deal to join ESPN. Rodgers has appeared on McAfee’s popular show every Tuesday for the past three seasons, and those interviews have often generated headlines. In 2021, Rodgers used the program to defend his decision to not receive the COVID vaccine, while complaining that he was “in the crosshairs of the woke mob.”

Rodgers has eschewed provocative comments like that since joining the Jets, appearing content––for now––to focus on football and revel in his new environment.

“This is the honeymoon period,” said Rosenblatt.