Jets owner Woody Johnson did everything he could to acquire Aaron Rodgers.
When the two met at Rodgers’ Malibu home last offseason along with other members of the Jets’ brain trust, Johnson brought a unique gift.
“He gave me honey from the Queen’s garden,” Rogers said of the former U.S. ambassador to Britain.
Can I say that again? Honey from Queen Elizabeth’s garden?
“It’s a wonderful gift,” said Rogers, a longtime history enthusiast.
The quarterback revealed Johnson’s gesture in “Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers,” an upcoming biography of four-time NFL Most Valuable Player Aaron Rodgers written by former Washington Post columnist Ian O’Connor.
According to the royal family, Queen Elizabeth II, who passes away in 2022, was so proud of the honey produced from Buckingham Palace beehives that she even gifted Pope Francis a jar of it when they first met in 2014.
Nine years later, as U.S. ambassador to the UK under the Trump administration, Johnson used that same tactic to repair his relationship with Rodgers, who had been an increasingly disgruntled 18-year player with the Packers.
The Jets owner, along with his brother and vice chairman Christopher Johnson, general manager Joe Douglas, head coach Robert Saleh, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett and team president Hymy El-Hai, accompanied Rodgers to the meeting with his agent, David Dunn of Athletes First.
A meeting in March 2023 convinced the quarterback that the Jets should be his preferred trade destination.
Rogers, then 39, had decided not to retire after a four-day, dark retreat in the southern Oregon wilderness.
Christopher Johnson, reputed to be the more affable of the two brothers, arrived in Malibu before other team officials and had a one-on-one conversation with Rodgers that was deemed beneficial to the Jets.
That led one prominent NFL figure with ties to the Johnson brothers to question whether the first impression the affable older brother made was intentional.
“If that was their grand plan, that’s genius,” Rodgers said in the book, referring to the idea that the Jets sent Christopher to that first meeting as a deliberate strategy.
He returned home early from practice to find the Jets’ vice president waiting for him.
“Chris and I just spent 20 minutes together,” Rogers said. “I love Chris, I really do. No matter what happens, I feel like I’m going to be friends with him forever.”
Rogers told O’Connor that he spent much of the five-hour summit talking to Saleh inside the beachfront villa while the other participants sat outside on a deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
“[Woody] “He didn’t say much,” Mr. Rogers said, “very little of it was like ‘The Woody Show.’ But once he started talking, he said all the right things. He wanted to win. He was willing to spend money and get the right people. I enjoyed his performances. I like Woody.”
In his book, Rodgers mentions the location of the meeting with the Jets: the mansion he reportedly purchased for $28 million in 2019 with his then-girlfriend, racing star Danica Patrick.
“I didn’t buy it from anybody,” Rogers said.
