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Rich Cimini, ESPN Staff WriterDec 14, 2024, 06:00 AM ET
- Rich Cimini is a staff writer who covers the New York Jets and the NFL at ESPN. Rich has covered the Jets for over 30 years, joining ESPN in 2010. Rich also hosts the Flight Deck podcast. He previously was a beat writer for the New York Daily News and is a graduate of Syracuse University. You can follow him via Twitter @RichCimini.
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — The first time New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers studied Allen Lazard was from afar. Intrigued, he pulled Lazard into his orbit, and the wide receiver’s life hasn’t been the same.
It was Green Bay Packers training camp, 2019. The team practiced on two fields — starters and key reserves on one, Packers hopefuls on the other. From a distance, Rodgers witnessed a 6-foot-5 receiver making impressive catches.
Lazard was a relatively anonymous player — undrafted out of Iowa State, cut by the Jacksonville Jaguars, picked up by the Packers late in the 2018 season and thrown into the last game for precisely one garbage-time snap in a blowout loss. He made a 7-yard reception, but it wasn’t from Rodgers, who was done for the day. It was from backup DeShone Kizer.
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Lazard returned the next summer, oblivious he had gained a fan in Rodgers — until the face of the franchise approached him in the cafeteria.
“What do I have to do to get you on my field?” Rodgers asked him.
“You’re f—ing Aaron Rodgers!” Lazard said. “Why are you asking me?”
Rodgers lobbied the Green Bay coaches and front office to give Lazard a legit chance. Sure enough, a quarterback-receiver tandem was born. A friendship, too. This is their sixth season together, and Lazard still can’t believe his good fortune.
“He is my career,” he said matter-of-factly.
Boosted by Rodgers, Lazard has earned nearly $30 million in his career and is able to live the life he always dreamed about as a kid in Urbandale, Iowa, where he grew up in a football-obsessed family.
In some ways, Lazard was created and later re-created by Rodgers, whose return from last season’s injury has revived the receiver’s career. You see, Rodgers’ left Achilles wasn’t the only thing that ruptured on Sept. 11, 2023, when he was lost for the season.
By the end of last season, Lazard’s first with the Jets, he had been benched, booed and labeled a free agent bust, a waste of $22 million in guarantees. He was asked to name the low point.
“The whole season,” he said.
THE JETS WILL travel to face the Jaguars on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS), marking the first time Lazard will face his original team. It’ll be his second game back after spending time on injured reserve with torn cartilage in his sternum, and he’s looking to maximize what could be his final four games with Rodgers.
Rodgers, 41, said he’s undecided on his future, but Lazard doesn’t see the future Hall of Famer retiring, not after a season like this.
“I think he’s just doing it for the headlines and the clicks and the attention,” Lazard said, smiling. “But with him, you never know.”
He paused.
“If it ends up being that,” Lazard said, meaning Rodgers’ farewell, “I’ve had a hell of a career because of that man.”
There’s a natural chemistry between them, and it has a tendency to come out in big moments. In 2021, he caught Rodgers’ 443rd career touchdown pass, which surpassed Brett Favre for a Packers record. He also received Rodgers’ last touchdown pass in Lambeau Field (2022). This season, he caught Rodgers’ first scoring pass as a Jet, his first at MetLife Stadium as a Jet and his fourth career Hail Mary — two more than any other quarterback has thrown since 2008.
Lazard has a Forrest Gump-like quality, popping up in all these historical snapshots. All told, he has caught 23 touchdown passes from Rodgers (only three from others), which puts him sixth on the quarterback’s all-time list. Davante Adams, another former Packer-turned-Jet, leads with 71.
They celebrate each touchdown in their own unique way. They touch hands, forming a triangle. It’s a nod to the Lazard’s personal saying, one that he adopted in high school — ATT, which stands for At The Top.
Allen Lazard and Aaron Rodgers touch hands to form a triangle. It’s a nod to Lazard’s credo from high school, “ATT” — which means “At The Top.” Raj Mehta/USA TODAY Sports
“Call it what you want, but he’s pretty much given me all my statistics,” Lazard said. “He’s helped me out, not only on the field, but off the field, too — just the leader and the man that he is, and how he carries himself and how he handles the controversy of just being the star that he is.
“He’s such a huge figure and mentor and big brother to me. I’m just grateful to have him in my life, and I’m forever grateful to be able to play alongside him. So that’s why I’m trying to make the most of this year, and every single time I can get a ball from him.”
When Lazard caught the first touchdown in the Week 3 win over the New England Patriots in the home opener, he ran the ball over to Rodgers and presented it to him on the field. Later, Lazard gave the quarterback his game jersey, another token of his gratitude.
Rodgers appreciated the gestures. He has always admired Lazard’s confidence, the way he overcame long odds to make it in the league. Looking back, he called it “a respect thing,” praising Lazard for his career progression and the way he approached 2024 after last year’s struggle.
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“I’m really proud of Allen, the way he’s responded,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers, too, understands what it’s like to be overlooked and doubted. Long before he was an NFL icon, Rodgers received no Division I offers out of high school and wound up at a junior college, Butte College in California, before matriculating at Cal.
Lazard felt a similar sting during the 2018 draft. After a record-setting career at Iowa State, he figured he’d be a Day 3 selection. He invited more than 40 friends and family to a draft-watch party at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Ames, Iowa. They were ready to celebrate, but he wasn’t one of the 33 wide receivers selected over seven rounds.
“It was a tragedy for me,” Lazard said. “It was something that was really hard for me to deal with.”
Rodgers knows a thing or two about the fickle nature of the draft. Thirteen years before Lazard, he became the poster boy for draft-day nightmares, falling to No. 24 after being projected as a possible No. 1 choice. His green-room misery played out on national TV. But pain is pain, no matter how many people are watching.
OCT. 14, 2019. Lazard spent a good part of game day on the Packers’ bench — until Rodgers spoke up.
“For the lack of better words, he mother f—ed the coaches to put me in,” Lazard recalled.
And so they did.
Lazard thought he had blown his big chance to prove himself when a Detroit Lions cornerback swatted the ball out of his hands on a long pass late in the fourth quarter, but he got another shot on the next play. This time, it was a 35-yard touchdown that helped erase a 12-point deficit in a 23-22 win. Lazard finished with a team-high 65 yards on four receptions.
“He kind of just announced to the world, ‘This is not too big for me. I can make all these plays,'” Rodgers recalled.
In only a few months, Lazard had worked his way up from a nobody on the second practice field to a place in Rodgers’ circle, no easy task for a young receiver.
“When you look at their connection right now, Aaron trusts him,” former Packers and Jets receiver Randall Cobb said. “He knows that when he gives him a signal, Allen is going to pick up the signal, and they’re going to be on the same page. That leads to opportunities, and he’s making the most of them.”
Playing receiver for Rodgers is an everyday challenge, according to Cobb, one of Rodgers’ closest friends. Cobb said he quizzes receivers in meetings, in practice, in walk-throughs and in the huddle, testing their knowledge. He uses an elaborate system of hand signals at the line of scrimmage, and you’d better know them — or else.
New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers and wide receiver Allen Lazard embrace ahead of their Week 2 matchup. Perry Knotts/Getty Images
“If he can’t trust you in a walk-through to get those things right,” Cobb said, “then he’s definitely not going to trust you on game day.”
The attention to detail came easily to Lazard, partly because of his upbringing. His father, Kevin, was a defensive back and team captain at Iowa State. Allen had a football in his crib, watched game film at a young age and attended Cyclones reunions with his dad. He believes it was his destiny to play in the NFL. He has the mindset to be a coach someday, according to Jets passing game coordinator Todd Downing.
To this day, Lazard receives game clips from his dad. One of the best days of his career occurred before the Patriots game at home, when he played catch with his dad on the field — a father-son first for the pair. He couldn’t recall their previous catch; it certainly wasn’t in an NFL stadium.
A couple of hours later, Lazard caught a touchdown from Rodgers, and all was good in his world.
“I think he’s conducted himself with a lot of humility,” Rodgers said. “That’s always some of the pie that you eat after a season you’d like to have gone differently.”
LAZARD SIGNED WITH the Jets in March 2023 because he knew — heck, everyone knew — that Rodgers would be traded to New York.
With a strong recommendation from Rodgers, the Jets signed Lazard to a four-year, $44 million contract even though he never had more than 788 receiving yards in a season. The plan was to pair him with Garrett Wilson, their up-and-coming star.
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Soon, Rodgers and Lazard were hanging out in Manhattan, showing up at sporting events and Broadway shows with other teammates. When you’re with Rodgers, it’s a red-carpet world. When the Packers were playing in London one year, he tagged along with Rodgers to a soccer match and watched from a private box with the cast of “Ted Lasso.”
There were huge expectations last season, and then Rodgers blew out his Achilles. It rocked the franchise and everyone in it, no one more than Lazard.
He was a nonfactor the entire season, never producing more than three catches and 61 receiving yards in any game. Without Rodgers, he appeared lost. Could a wide receiver be that connected to one quarterback?
Privately, coaches were perplexed. They wondered about his focus. After weeks with little or no production, Lazard was benched for the Black Friday game against the Miami Dolphins. It’s unusual in the NFL for a highly paid player to be declared a healthy scratch.
Lazard was relieved.
“Honestly, that was probably a high point for me,” he said, explaining that it was beneficial physically and mentally.
He called it a temporary respite from “the slander of not being successful” — a reference to the vitriol from fans and media.
“Last year wasn’t fun at all, but it was what it was,” said Lazard, the subject of trade rumors in the offseason.
Lazard derived inspiration from “Hakuna Matata” — a song from his favorite movie as a kid, “The Lion King.” He watched it so many times that it became a running joke in his family. Translated, it means “no worries.”
Lazard has been a part of some of Rodgers’ biggest milestones — such as his 443rd career touchdown pass, which surpassed Brett Favre for a Packers record, and Rodgers’ last touchdown pass at Lambeau Field. Brooke Sutton/Getty Images
He leaned on that credo when he wasn’t drafted, when he was cut by the Jaguars and when he was cut by the Packers, who quickly re-signed him. Lazard wasn’t going to worry about his poor 2023 performance. Besides, he knew Rodgers would be back.
From the first day of training camp, with a healthy Rodgers directing the offense, Lazard was reborn. Teammates and coaches buzzed about “the new Allen.” Rodgers praised him for “doing the things that got him paid,” such as breaking tackles and blocking in the run game. In other words: the dirty work.
“I couldn’t be more proud of him, being able to come back from a rough year last year,” Cobb said.
In eight games, Lazard has 30 receptions for 412 yards and he’s tied for the team lead in touchdown catches (five) even though he missed five games. The one glitch in his game: He has a team-high six drops, including a third-down play that resulted in a three-and-out on the first series of the first game.
It was against the San Francisco 49ers. Perfect ball. Easy first down.
Drop.
You could almost hear the groans from the fan base, imagining a replay of Lazard’s 2023 season. Rodgers told him to stay focused, that he’d come back to him in a big spot.
And he did, in the third quarter, finding Lazard for a 36-yard touchdown — the start of his turnaround season.
“Give him all the credit,” Lazard said of Rodgers, explaining how he went from a perceived malcontent to an integral part of the offense.
Surely, Lazard deserves some credit, too.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “Give him all the credit. It’s all Aaron Rodgers.”
