Veteran wide receiver Randall Cobb spent the 2023 NFL season with the New York Jets and recently suggested that somebody within the organization is to blame for a negative story about quarterback Zach Wilson going public this past December.
“I think in the media, it was more dramatic than it actually was,” Cobb said about the Wilson story during an appearance on the “Bussin’ with the Boys” podcast, per Sam Neumann of Awful Announcing. “I think that they had told him that they were gonna trade him in the offseason, and then they benched him, and then they wanted him to play again. And then they tried to blame him for not wanting to play, but you just told him that you were gonna trade him.”
Specifically, it was reported in early December that Wilson was “reluctant to step back into the starting role” following his latest benching during what became his final season with the franchise. Week 1 starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers later ripped the story and said the Jets needed “to get to the bottom of wherever this is coming from and put a stop to it privately” because there had “been a bunch of leaks” since he first joined the club in April 2023.
“It was a lot of politics, a lot of stuff in the media, it was a lot of like, ‘Come on, man, like what are we doing here?’ A lot of meeting with the media, feeding them stuff,” Cobb continued.
Wilson ultimately re-entered the starting lineup but went down with a concussion in Week 15. He remained in the concussion protocol through the end of the campaign, and the Jets traded the 24-year-old to the Denver Broncos earlier this offseason.
Cobb’s comments generated headlines the same week that Rodgers skipped the club’s two-day mandatory minicamp as an unexcused absence. As shared by ESPN’s Rich Cimini, Jets head coach Robert Saleh told reporters on Tuesday that he and Rodgers spoke about the matter before organized team activities and that the future Hall of Famer “communicated” that “he had an event that was very important to him.”
For what it’s worth, nothing about Rodgers missing mandatory minicamp was leaked before Tuesday.