National Football League

QB Chad Henne tells Colin Cowherd why he declined offer from Jets

Updated Dec. 7, 2023 5:35 p.m. ET

When the New York Jets scrambled to add another quarterback to their roster as Zach Wilson was pressed back into starter duty in the wake of Aaron Rodgers' Week 1 Achilles injury, one of their calls was to the recently retired Chad Henne.

Henne, who won a Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs as Patrick Mahomes' backup last season, first revealed in a September interview with his hometown newspaper the week of Rodgers' injury in September that the Jets had approached him, and he had respectfully declined their offer.

He explained why to Colin Cowherd on Thursday's edition of "The Herd".

"It's hard to say, ‘Would I be happy there?' I just didn't feel like that was the right situation," Henne told Cowherd. "You see Aaron Rodgers go down, the offensive line doesn't look great. I'd be away from my family. There's just a lot of factors. And I didn't train like I normally do to get ready for the season. So I would take a couple weeks to get my arm at least ready, and then you know Jets fans, they'd probably be cheering ‘Henne' [when Wilson would struggle] just like when I was the starting quarterback [in Jacksonville] and they'd be cheering [for] the other quarterback.

"It would have been a tough situation, and I just didn't feel like it was right for me at the time."

When Cowherd asked about the Jets' lack of a winning culture in their organization, Henne pointed out that he knows Jets head coach Robert Saleh and offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett from their days as assistant coaches with the Jacksonville Jaguars when Henne was playing quarterback there.

Henne also defended Wilson, saying a big reason for the former second-overall NFL Draft pick's continued struggles this season is that unlike Rodgers, who won two NFL MVPs with Hackett as his coordinator on the Green Bay Packers, Wilson is far less familiar with Hackett's offensive system.

"Speaking with Nathaniel throughout the process, Aaron Rodgers knows, obviously, the system in and out," Henne explained. "So whether it be audibling, saying, ‘Hey, we have inside routes here, the play’s calling for inside routes but [the defenders] have inside leverage, let's break it out to an outside route,' Aaron had that ability to audible and create different plays outside of that system.

"Zach Wilson's not there yet. He's a young quarterback. He has talent, but he's not there mentally, and he just doesn't have a lot of experience yet."

The Jets' quarterback situation this season has been a disaster since Rodgers went down on his fourth offensive snap of the year. After struggling mightily in 2022, Wilson has not looked much better this season, and the Jets benched him for backup Tim Boyle two weeks ago. However, Boyle had his own struggles on the field, and Saleh has now re-promoted Wilson to starting quarterback despite a report that Wilson was hesitant to step back into the role due to injury risk. Both Saleh and Rodgers pushed back on the report.

It remains to be seen, meanwhile, whether Rodgers is able to achieve his wildly ambitious goal of returning this season from his Achilles tear or whether the 39-year-old decides to start looking ahead to leading the Jets in 2024.

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