Hard Knocks returns, and it's pretty much the Aaron Rodgers show

This season of "Hard Knocks" was always going to be "The Aaron Rodgers Show." How could it not be with his "will he or won't he" jump ship/retire/darkness retreat drama dominating the offseason?

Sure enough, the latest edition of the long-running reality show offered a 53-minute premiere Tuesday night on HBO, and it was heavy on what Rodgers's arrival means for the New York Jets. But it was an appearance by the "voice of god," Liev Schreiber in the NFL narrator's role long occupied by John Facenda, that managed to overshadow the quarterback god.

Admittedly, Rodgers wasn't thrilled with the idea of appearing on the show. Last month during the American Century golf tournament he said: "one of the only things I like about 'Hard Knocks' is the voice of god, who narrates it.

"Obviously there's a lot of eyes on me. A lot of eyes on our team. A lot of expectations for our squad. They forced it down our throats and we gotta deal with it."

The arrival of Rodgers, walking through the team's facility and saying the Super Bowl III trophy looked "lonely," was eclipsed by the arrival of "the voice" on a helicopter.

"It's the voice of god!" Rodgers chirped to his fellow quarterbacks. "You guys didn't say hi? Go say hi! It's the voice of god!"

"Go say hi!" he told offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett. "He's nervous. He wants to meet people."

What a gas: Well, there's A.G.N.B. — as in "All. Gas. No. Brake." on the screen behind Coach Robert Saleh as he addressed Gang Green, explaining how the only bird that will attack an eagle is a crow and addressing the elephant in the room — expectations for the team.

"It will perch on the eagle's back and peck at its neck. So rather than fight back and tearing a crow to pieces, like it can, the eagle spreads its wings and it soars as high as it possibly can," he said to smiles among the players. "It keeps going and going and going as high as it can and the higher it flies, the harder it is for the crow to breathe. Eventually, the crow suffocates, dies and falls back to earth."

So, there are "going to be a lot of crows expecting us to fall on our faces." Got it.

Young and old-er meet Rodgers: Rodgers will turn 40 in December. "I've watched you since I was 7 years old. I've watched you my whole life," Mecole Hardman Jr., the 25-year-old wide receiver who came over from the Kansas City Chiefs, told him.

As for Saleh, his impression of the quarterback who wears No. 8: "He's obviously the best quarterback I've ever had on a team."

Hackett draws attention: Rodgers has been reunited with Hackett, who found himself the target of vicious comments by Denver Broncos Coach Sean Payton about his 2022 stint as Payton's predecessor. Rodgers stepped up to defend his former coordinator in Green Bay, saying "keep my coaches' names out of your mouth" and Payton has apologized for saying Hackett's head-coaching tenure in Denver was "one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL."

"The more you're around him, the more you realize how special he is as a human," Rodgers said on "Hard Knocks." Our personalities mesh. We're both competitive, we both have balance — he has an incredible wife and four kids, I have a whole life off the field that's pretty well-documented now. We get along like brothers … we like to give each other some s---. … I love him."

Among Hackett's roles is to try to distract Rodgers by saying things like "naked clowns." Rodgers fired back, "Sean Payton."

Saleh's take? "If you ain't got no haters, you ain't poppin'."

Sauce and Wilson mix it up: Cornerback Sauce Gardner and wide receiver Garrett Wilson — two of the Jets' three first-round draft picks in 2022 — have a friendly competition in one-on-one drills. "I respect what he does. He respects what I do," Wilson noted.