General manager Joe Douglas said the team is “optimistic” about getting a trade worked out for Aaron Rodgers, adding that the Jets’ pursuit of the Green Bay Packers quarterback will not change after Lamar Jackson revealed he requested a trade.
“We’re not where we need to be, in terms of our talks with Green Bay, but very optimistic moving forward,” Douglas told SNY’s Jeane Coakley at the NFL’s annual meeting in Arizona.
Douglas told reporters that the Jets have had some “productive conversations with the Packers” and the team feels “like we're in a good place."
"There’s no hard deadline here’s not a ton of urgency from our standpoint. But very optimistic," Douglas said.
The general manager said he would “not get into any specifics about what picks have been talked about” when asked if the Jets’ first-round draft pick, No. 13 overall, was off the table in negotiations with Green Bay.
But if the trade does not work out, is there a fallback option ready? “We feel comfortable with the plan we have in place, we’re gonna let this process play out, but again, we do have a really good plan,” Douglas told reporters.
Earlier Monday, Jackson posted a three-tweet thread in which he revealed he requested a trade on March 2, nearly two weeks before the Baltimore Ravens placed the non-exclusive franchise tag on him.
However, Douglas indicated rather unequivocally that while the former MVP was “a fantastic player,” the Jets would not be pursuing a deal with Baltimore.
"Where we stand is, It would be disingenuous and operating, negotiating in bad faith if we went down that path,” he said. “Right now, we have our plan, we have our process and we're sticking to that."
Douglas added: “We’re staying on our path that we’re on right now."