A Jets First in '24: Joint Practices with 3 Different Preseason Opponents

Some football fans have concerns that with the current breakdown of 17-game regular-season games and three preseason games per team, crisp and error-free NFL play will be harder to come by especially once September arrives and the "real" games begin.

But as others have noted, a familiar element has been introduced with more frequency into teams' preseason calendars: joint practices with upcoming preseason opponents.

Jets QB Aaron Rodgers has certainly noticed.

"Now, nobody wants to play their guys. It's different," Rodgers said last week, looking ahead to the first of the Jets' joint practices when they host the Commanders on Thursday at One Jets Drive. "To combat that, now we're doing all these practices with other teams, so we have three of those. I'm assuming those will be like our super heavy days and that'll be like the preseason for us."

Even with the injury and chippiness factors, joint practices have taken on larger roles lately for the obvious reasons of one team finally getting to thud and lean on players wearing different colored uniforms.

"You're putting film out there for the league to see," veteran safety Chuck Clark said on another reason these practices often rise above normal intrasquad camp practices. "You never know if one of those guys one day will be a teammate. You never know how this is going to work out. So you just put film out there for the whole world to see."

In that vein, it's interesting to note that Jets RT Morgan Moses practiced against the Jets with Washington in Richmond, VA, in 2018 and Rodgers and WRs Allen Lazard and Malik Taylor worked against the Green & White as Packers in the two joint practices in Green Bay in '21.

After the practice with the Commanders on Thursday, the teams will then kick off their preseason skeds at noon at MetLife Stadium on Saturday. Single combined practices at Carolina next week and against the Giants the following week are also on the August calendar.

This year's combined practices with three different teams is believed to be the most by the Jets in a preseason in their history. The combo approach began on July 30, 1968, when the Jets and Colts, in a relatively unpublicized event, held a "rookie game" at the Colts' training camp in Westminster, MD, less than six months before the teams met in Super Bowl III in Miami. The Colts won the rookie game 27-14.

Here is a list of the joint practices the Green & White have had since 2000, showing among other things that the Jets have done fairly well in the games that followed the merged practices, going 4-1-1 since 2021: