Robert Saleh firing: Aaron Rodgers pulls back curtain on call with Jets owner Woody Johnson

During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday, Aaron Rodgers confirmed he talked with New York Jets team owner Woody Johnson on the phone prior to Robert Saleh’s firing on Tuesday morning.

Rodgers claimed it was a call where they only spoke about the loss to the Minnesota Vikings, and the quarterback’s injuries coming out of the clash in London. The Jets signal-caller “appreciated” the call, where he expressed he was “disappointed” in his performance, telling the team owner, “We’re going to get this thing turned around.”

“Yeah, I did talk to Woody. Woody called me on Monday night. We had a short conversation. I appreciated the call. It was a genuine call,” Rodgers explained. “He just asked me how I was doing. You know, obviously I got rolled up on during the game and, you know, my ankle got pretty banged up. So, he just called and was asking how I was doing. We talked about the game and how disappointed I was in my performance, and that I’m going to play better and we’re going to get this thing turned around. Then, we hung up.

“To that point, you know, Woody has no obligation to let me know of what his plans are, whether or not he knew what he was doing at that moment is inconsequential. I just appreciate the call that he was checking on me. It was just like a friend calling, like he would do, ‘Hey, man, I saw that hit in the game, you doing okay?’ and we had a nice, short five minute conversation, and then that was that. … I felt it was a nice call. I was appreciative that he checked on me.

“We’ve talked on the phone a number of times over the last couple years. He checked on me after my surgery. He checked on me during the rehab process. Christopher Johnson, his brother, you know, and I have a good relationship, you know, he did the same thing. He checked on me as well, made sure I was okay. So, it didn’t seem like anything abnormal. I was actually really thankful, you know, for the call.”

Evidently, Johnson didn’t clear Saleh’s firing with Rodgers, if the quarterback is to be taken at his word. The former NFL Most Valuable Player told McAfee that he wasn’t expecting Saleh to be fired, and likened it to a scene from the John Wick movie series.

“I was in the training room doing rehab, and it’s one of those things, like in a John Wick movie, is the best way to equate it, where John Wick becomes excommunicado, and then everybody at the Continental, their phone starts vibrating. Yeah, it was kind of like that,” Rodgers added. “… Football is a family atmosphere. You spend more time, you know, for many of us, with these people, than than our own loved ones.

“So, it’s a tight knit community. I think everybody was feeling for Robert and worried about him.”

Regardless of how it all went down, Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets must figure out how to right the ship under interim Jeff Ulbrich in quick fashion. The Buffalo Bills come to town in Week 6, and they’ll be under the spotlight, playing Monday Night Football in East Rutherford in their first game without Robert Saleh.