There was a no-look dart over the middle to Garrett Wilson.
Followed by a roll to the right and a 59-yard dime across the field for an Xavier Gipson touchdown.
Only the latest reminders at Tuesday’s OTAs of what a healthy Aaron Rodgers, even at age 40, will mean to the Jets, what he can mean to Wilson’s inevitable ascension to stardom.
The big “if” is whether left tackle Tyron Smith, who has missed 23 games across the past three seasons, can stay on the field to keep Rodgers upright. Because if he can, and if the remodeled offensive line is what GM Joe Douglas and coach Robert Saleh are hoping and praying it can be in their hot-seat seasons, the path would be paved for Breece Hall to be the quarterback’s new best friend … not to mention offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett’s.
No one is in Christian McCaffrey’s $19 million per year league, but an entire season of Breece the Beast, free from the mental and physical hurdles of the torn ACL that sabotaged too much of his 2022 season, could give him a run for the money, and help Rodgers and the Jets electrify and heat up New York in the fall and winter.
This will be Hall’s chance to back up his Twitter rankings in February — when he placed himself first, ahead of Bijan Robinson and McCaffrey.
“He’s the best in the league,” Wilson said after Hall exploded for 191 all-purpose yards in a Christmas Eve win over the Commanders. “I can’t wait for the whole world to know.”
Neither can Breece the Beast, who tweeted Jan. 3:
“Telling yall now
“2024: I will be a Top RB
“I Will be in the Pro Bowl
“I Will be an All Pro
“And it will continue years after that”
Saleh, asked if he thinks he can have an All-Pro running back, said: “Why not? Remember, Breece, for as good as he is running the ball, he’s pretty damn good as a receiver too, so he’s gonna get his touches.”
Hall led all RBs with 76 receptions on 95 targets for 591 yards and four TDs. He had 649 yards after catch. Remember, too, that in Green Bay Aaron Jones enjoyed a pair of 50-plus catch seasons with 11 TDs in the final two seasons of Rodgers’ Packers career. Hall was 222-for-994 with five TDs rushing.
The Giants too often underutilized Saquon Barkley in the passing game following his 91-catch rookie season. Let’s see how the Eagles utilize him.
“The quarterback’s best friend is a guy who can take a 5-yard checkdown and turn it into 20, which I think he made a routine of last year,” Saleh said. “We can use him a bunch of different ways, but at the end of the day, it’s just trying to find ways to get him the ball.”
Rodgers last summer compared Hall to former Packers RB Ahman Green, who enjoyed six 1,000-yard rushing seasons and 242 receptions from 2000-03.
Jets RB coach Tony Dews coached Derrick Henry from 2018-22. Hall is not the bruiser Henry is, because no one is. But he is much more than a 5-foot-11, 220-pound power back.
“He’s a big, fast, shifty individual,” Dews said, “and he was that in college. He is a twitchy athlete in terms of the run game. He’s fast. He ran much faster at the combine than I thought he would on film, because he’s always making lateral cuts. But when you see him take off in a straight line, he can separate.
“And then, he’s got impressive ball skills. He does a great job catching the football in all three zones — whether it’s short, the screen game, intermediate — and he does have some route savviness to him, so I’m looking forward to being able to coach a guy like that. It’s exciting. It’s something to look forward to.”
Rodgers will welcome all the help he can get. From Smith, who has missed 23 games across the past three seasons. From the rest of the remodeled offensive line. From Breece the Beast, who currently is limited with what Saleh termed “lower-half stuff.”
Passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Todd Downing was asked what he learned about Hall last season.
“Man,” he began, “versatile, obviously you see explosiveness, he’s a strong runner. I think he’s a competitor as well, one of those guys that wants the ball in his hands as many times as possible. I just like his ability to kind of adapt to things that we want to implement in a week-to-week game plan. He’s a guy that is willing to try anything, and if he doesn’t get it right the first time, he’s hungry to come back and figure out how he can fix it and get in the same page with the quarterback or the O-line.”
Breece the Beast will undoubtedly be champing at the bit to back up his lofty goals.
“What makes a guy like Breece special is he understands the process that needs to be taken to get to that point,” Saleh said “A lot of guys will say something, and they just don’t understand what that looks like or sounds like or what it means. I think going into his third year, he fully understands what it’s going to take to do something like that.”
Breece Hall: Aaron Rodgers’ new best friend.