It seems like the Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets will either have a very successful season or find some way to fall well short of their potential in 2024. There just doesn’t seem to be another scenario in which they fall in between those two outcomes.
They have plenty of talent on both sides of the football, and that is why some people are hyping them up once again. However, their success this coming season, or lack thereof, will largely hinge on which version of Rodgers shows up.
The quarterback has lots of wear and tear on him at age 40, and he is coming off a torn Achilles he suffered on the Jets’ first offensive series of last season. He could very well be rendered a thin shell of his old future Hall of Fame self this fall and winter as a result.
But Dakota Randall of Pro Football Network still gave Rodgers some benefit of the doubt in his recent ranking of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
“Nobody questions Rodgers’ ability,” wrote Randall. “The doubts center around his age (40), recent injury history, and mercurial personality.
“Rodgers is as capable of leading the Jets to the Super Bowl next season as he is dragging them into a lost campaign. He still is a top-10 quarterback, but he’s fading.”
The Jets have a big opportunity within the AFC East
In his last full season, which came in 2022 as a member of the Green Bay Packers, Rodgers was already showing some slippage. He threw for 3,695 yards and 26 touchdowns, which weren’t terrible numbers, but that production was well below where he was the previous two seasons when he won his third and fourth league MVP awards.
He may not need to return to an MVP-level of play this coming season, but he’ll at least need to perform at a Pro Bowl level if New York is to have any real shot at doing damage in the playoffs.
The AFC is loaded, and therefore if the Jets don’t finish first in the AFC East, they will have to fend off a number of very good teams in order to claim a Wild Card playoff spot.
The good news in that regard is that the Buffalo Bills, who have been the main heavyweight in the division the last four years, look greatly weakened after trading away four-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans. Yet plenty are still picking them to win the division.
Aaron Rodgers doesn’t do anything quietly these days, and that will likely be true of the Jets. They will either soar high or crash to the ground while drawing lots of attention to themselves.
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