With no games to recap as the NFL took a bye week between the preseason finale and Week 1, HBO’s popular “Hard Knocks” series concluded Tuesday with an episode full of storylines that featured UFOs, final cutdowns and the King of Pop.
Aaron Rodgers and the unidentified flying object
The must-see moment of the episode came when New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers shared a wild story that he described as a scene out of “Independence Day,” which occurred around the time he was drafted in 2005.
The story came up because one of Rodgers’ old college teammates at California, Steve Levy, visited Jets camp. That prompted the four-time NFL MVP to share the story of when he and Levy, along with Levy’s brother, saw what they believed was a UFO.
“It was definitely unidentified, it was definitely flying and it was definitely a large object,” Rodgers said.
As the quarterback recalls, back in 2005 when Rodgers was in town for the NFL draft, he stayed the night at Levy’s home in New Jersey. At one point, they heard an alarm go off in the distance and walked outside to see what was going on.
“Up in the clouds, we heard this sound and we saw this tremendously large object moving through the sky,” Rodgers said. “It was like a scene out of ‘Independence Day’ when the ships are coming into the atmosphere, creating this kind of like explosion-type fire in the sky.”
What followed about 30 seconds later — after the object had flown out of sight — was the sound of fighter jets that appeared to be chasing the object, Rodgers said.
“We just stood there in disbelief for another few minutes and nobody said a word. Then we all kind of looked at each other like, ‘Did we just see what we think we just saw?’”
Rodgers claimed that the alarm that night came from a nearby power plant, and the incident got him interested in researching UFOs.
“And if you know anything about UFOs, there are a lot of sightings around nuclear energy, around volcanoes, around power plants,” he said.
Making the cut
Tuesday’s episode took viewers behind the scenes behind cutdown day, when NFL teams have to trim their active rosters down from 90 to 53 players for the regular season.
Two undrafted rookie wide receivers, Xavier Gipson and Jason Brownlee, found out whether they would make the initial 53-man roster, a sequence highlighted in the final episode. Their story has been one the show has been following through much of this season.
Spoiler alert: Both undrafted players beat the odds and made it onto the active roster.
“You’re a New York Jet, man. Welcome to the team,” Jets general manager Joe Douglas told Brownlee during a discussion with the two and coach Robert Saleh on cutdown day.
“Just wanna let you know, you’re a New York Jet,” Douglas told Gipson when he found out his fate.
Perhaps the best moment, though, came when the team’s wide receivers coach, Zach Azzanni, tracked down the two after their meetings, giving the pair a mid-air chest bump in celebration.
Broadway livin’
During the credits of the season’s fourth episode, New York players talked about something very New York-ish: their favorite Broadway plays.
In the final episode, a large group of Jets players attended “MJ the Musical,” a Broadway show dedicated to the life of King of Pop, Michael Jackson. Among the players in attendance were Rodgers, tight end C.J. Uzomah, defensive tackle Solomon Thomas, wide receiver Randall Cobb and backup quarterback Zach Wilson.
It was enjoyable to watch the players react to the music throughout the play, and the group even had a little time to meet with the actors after the show — that included the actor who played Michael Jackson, Elijah Reha Johnson, showing off his moonwalk skills and challenging Uzomah to try it out.
The MJ talk wasn’t over, though. At practice the next day, Cobb approached Wilson to discuss what teammate reminded him of the actor portraying Michael Jackson — wide receiver Garrett Wilson.
“Just the way he moves,” Cobb told Zach Wilson, to which the backup QB agreed.
“Just the way he drops his hands and his arms are dangly,” Zach Wilson said.
That, of course, led to some joking around with Jets offensive players and coaches, including Cobb and Garrett Wilson trying their best iconic MJ moves.
Best one-liners
- “Stay away from the big meal. Don’t spend it all in one day.” — Saleh to Brownlee, after the rookie wide receiver found out he made the 53-man roster.
- “At the end of the day, I put everything into this (expletive), and it is what it is.” — Jets defensive tackle Tanzel Smart after finding out he was released. Smart was brought back on the team’s practice squad.
- “It’s our time to dominate. It’s our time to go.” — Jets defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich, after the team’s initial 53-man roster was set.
How to rewatch ‘Hard Knocks’
The 18th season of “Hard Knocks” concluded Tuesday night with the fifth one-hour episode.
All five episodes can be watched through HBO’s streaming service, Max.