On an early first down Monday night time, 38-year-old New York Jets left sort out Duane Brown tried a poorly executed lower block that resulted in Buffalo Payments edge rusher Leonard Floyd getting a free shot at Aaron Rodgers. New York’s expensive new quarterback missing time within the pocket to function behind left sort out was the worst concern Jets followers realized. However at the very least he bought up– briefly.
For individuals who disassociated in that second, their ideas veered in direction of the Jets dipping into their utility belt to exchange Brown, and save Rodgers’ growing older physique from taking a battering. There was an excessive amount of invested in Rodgers. He lastly touched down in April to unprecedented fanfare after a ballyhooed darkness retreat.
On Monday morning, a number of shops confirmed that Rodgers had ruptured his decrepit left Achilles tendon. From the beginning of the Rodgers period, pianos have been falling from the sky. Firstly of OTAs, Rodgers limped off. After a quick preseason cameo and a four-play microdose of normal season Rodgers, he was carted out. 4 performs into his profession, Rodgers’ left Achilles popped and with it, took the Jets Tremendous Bowl aspirations with him. All in all, his tenure might have been shorter than an ayahuasca journey.
The ratio of tales written that embrace the phrases Rodgers or Jets to downs performed must be a world file. From the cutthroat environment to the media consideration, New York can gobble public figures up fairly shortly, however devouring somebody this shortly is Usain Bolt ranges of quick. For a quick interval, he bestowed the Jets fanbase with a shallowness increase and took others off the ledge of leaping ship to the Giants. After Massive Blue was decimated 40-0, that latter group of New Yorkers is caught between a rock and a tough place.
Pitchers are notoriously fragile, Rodgers didn’t even final so long as quadragenarians Max Scherzer or Justin Verlander. On the heels (poor alternative of phrases) of the untimely finish to Jasson Dominguez’s season, and the dissolution of the Brooklyn Nets, the Jets had skyscraping aspirations. Congrats to Jalen Brunson on changing into the mayor (of New York Metropolis) sports activities.
Now that the Rodgers period is probably over after a decade, or perhaps it simply felt that lengthy, it’s important that we decide his legacy. Right here’s the unbridled optimistic aspect. Since their most up-to-date championship in Tremendous Bowl III, the Jets are 22-32 in Week 1. Which means Rodgers began among the finest 23 openers in Jets historical past. Rodgers additionally fell in need of enjoying the 65 % of snaps essential to improve the Jets maintain on their 2024 second-round decide to a primary.
The New York Jets are cursed, after all
In some ways, Rodgers lived as much as the Jets curse after which some. Following in Brett Favre’s footsteps from Inexperienced Bay to Gang Inexperienced, he verified that the generational trauma of Jets followers will stay on in one other era’s helix.
To find out the extent of the organic modifications that emotional trauma can set off inside descendents, daring neuroscientists did the soiled work of emotionally scarring mice. Their work contributed to the accepted concept that fearful emotional wounds might alter the cells and affect the conduct of future generations.
It’s additionally generally identified that Jets followers have been immunized towards disappointment, however science received’t take it severely. The Inexperienced Bay quarterbacks storing the identical genetic markers that led them to disappoint Woody Johnson is an much more monumental growth. Fifteen years in the past, Favre launched into the same journey as Rodgers, from the stands proud in Inexperienced Bay to the blinding lights of the New York metropolitan space. Favre arrived with comparable pomp and circumstance solely to be crippled by an injured bicep that restricted him as a passer, however not as a texter.
Nonetheless, after enduring the grueling restoration related to a ruptured Achilles, will Rodgers really feel as much as getting again into enjoying form to proceed his distinguished Jets profession subsequent season? At 40, that is going to be an excellent more durable grind.
Rodgers’ preeminent legacy as a Jet might be additional inflated by enduring the best comeback from an Achilles in league historical past. If he pulled that off and performed two, three, 4 drives, it will solely inflate his Jets legacy. In 1993, Dan Marino ruptured his Achilles, however the harm in the end restricted hip mobility for the remainder of his profession. Within the meantime, the Jets will deal with patching up their O-Line and creating belief in Zach Wilson.
Rodgers’ biggest moments will illuminate this season although. Who amongst us can neglect his solely preseason begin towards the Jets and his purdy landing strike to Garrett Wilson? His dash out of the tunnel with the American flag on 9/11 was probably the most uplifting Jets second in 50 years. Rodgers didn’t simply vow to make the Jets contenders, however he promised to assist rehabilitate Wilson and restore him by osmosis. One can solely hope that his intensive work with Wilson has been etched into his impressionable thoughts and muscle reminiscence as a result of it’s now his present.
Rodgers is among the many Jets legends now; on the sidelines.
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