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NFL offseason power rankings: No. 10 New York Jets get Aaron Rodgers back for pressure-filled season

Preview focus: Jets need decent QB play to go with an elite defense and offensive talent

frank schwab
Senior writer
·14 min read
50
Aaron Rodgers looks for a much better outcome for the Jets this season. (Yahoo Sports/Gregory Hodge)

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The New York Jets catered everything around Aaron Rodgers. There's a reason the Jets employed offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, backup quarterback Tim Boyle and receivers Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb last season, and it's not because they were great at their jobs.

The Jets are still waiting for a payoff. Everyone knows that Rodgers played four snaps last season before tearing his Achilles. That sets up a 2024 season with extreme stakes. The Jets put all their chips in the middle of the table for a quarterback who will be 41 years old in December and is coming off a major injury, and they're down to one last shot to get something special out of their Rodgers investment.

"If I don't do what I know I'm capable of doing, we're all probably going to be out of here," Rodgers told the Jets media in May.

Rodgers immediately backtracked after he said that, saying he liked that pressure and that's just how the NFL is every year. But Rodgers is smart and media savvy. He understood what he was saying (and he had expressed a similar thought at the end of last season). His comment was a precise setup for the Jets' season. If it doesn't go as planned, it seems highly unlikely New York would try the same formula in 2025.

The good news is the Jets are set up well to have a huge season. No team should be happy with 7-10 records in back-to-back years, but given how bad New York's quarterback play was the past two seasons it was a notable accomplishment. The Jets are loaded. All they need is decent quarterback play. That was the story when they traded for Rodgers a year ago. It's still the story after Rodgers' injury ruined last season.

Rodgers has his own questions to answer after his injury. For all of the bluster of him returning late last season — it was baffling how much steam that story gained — he's still not a sure thing. The combination of the injury and his age should be concerning to a team that has so much riding on his play.

The Jets are exceptionally talented around Rodgers. Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson could battle for NFL Offensive Player of the Year, like they battled for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year two seasons ago. The Jets added receivers Mike Williams and rookie Malachi Corley. They improved the offensive line through free agency, a trade and the draft. The defense was again elite — and the main reason the team was competitive most of the season. It could be the NFL's best defense this year. The special teams were good last season too.

Everything was playoff-ready — except quarterback. The Jets posted a putrid 70.5 passer rating as a team, the worst in the NFL. They had four games with 171 total yards or less, which seems impossible in the modern NFL, especially with skill-position stars like Hall and Wilson. And New York still won seven games despite that. It's not hard to imagine them winning many more games with competent quarterback play, much less MVP-level play like Rodgers is capable of.

Everyone employed by the Jets knows that better happen. The owner made it clear.

"We have all this talent and we have to deploy talent properly. So I think they all got the message. This is it. This is the time to go. We've got to produce this year," Jets owner Woody Johnson said via USA Today. "We have to do a lot better than seven [wins], definitely."

Few teams have been on that kind of high-wire. The Jets haven't been to the playoffs since the 2010 season, which is the longest drought in any major American professional sport. If the Jets have another losing season, regardless of bad injury luck or any other factors, they'll almost surely sweep out the coach, general manager, quarterback, quarterback's cronies and many others. But also, the Jets realize a Super Bowl is well within their realistic outcomes.

After a season that was lost four plays into it, it's now or never for the Jets. And there's no ambiguity over what's on the line.

One big offseason issue for the Jets was offensive line, after dealing with numerous injuries to that unit last season. The Jets traded for right tackle Morgan Moses from the Ravens, signed left tackle Tyron Smith from the Cowboys and left guard John Simpson from the Ravens, and in the first round they drafted talented tackle Olu Fashanu for some insurance. That's how you fix a problem. Jets owner Woody Johnson said after last season the team needed a backup quarterback because "We didn't have one last year," and the team signed reliable veteran Tyrod Taylor. The Jets took a shot on talented but oft-injured receiver Mike Williams, who was cut by the Chargers due to salary-cap reasons. They lost pass rusher Bryce Huff to the Eagles after Huff's breakout 2023 season, but traded with the Eagles for Haason Reddick to replace Huff. That's been further complicated by Reddick's reported trade request amid a contract holdout. If he does play, Reddick is one of only two players (the other is Myles Garrett) with double-digit sacks each of the past four seasons. Defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw, a former first-round pick of the 49ers, was signed to the line as well. In the draft, the Jets had a difficult first-round decision between Fashanu to help the line or tight end Brock Bowers, and that decision could be second guessed. But given the injury history of the veteran tackles, Fashanu was a reasonable pick. Receiver Malachi Corley and running back Braelon Allen, the team's third- and fourth-round picks, could carve out roles right away. The Jets knew their weaknesses and attacked them.

Grade: A-

There aren't many instances of quarterbacks suffering Achilles injuries, as Aaron Rodgers did last season. Here are the recent examples:

• Dan Marino: Marino tore his Achilles in 1993, then had Pro Bowl seasons in 1994 and 1995. In 1994 he threw for 4,453 yards and 30 touchdowns. Marino played six more seasons, though he tore his Achilles at age 32, a much younger age than Rodgers.

• Vinny Testaverde: Testaverde came back in 2000 at age 37 after tearing his Achilles the year before and led the NFL with 590 passing attempts, throwing for 3,732 yards and 21 touchdowns. He also led the NFL with 25 interceptions and had his worst passer rating since nine years earlier. Testaverde played eight seasons after his injury.

• Jim Miller: Miller tore his Achilles in 2000, but played pretty well in 2001 as the Bears went 11-2 in his starts. His 2001 season was the best of his career, which was spent mostly as a backup.

• Trent Dilfer: Dilfer tore his Achilles in 2002 and was mostly a backup after that, throwing for 20 touchdowns and 28 interceptions in his final four seasons.

There isn't much history to draw upon when trying to figure out what Rodgers will play like after his torn Achilles. The Marino example provides hope, though Marino was younger and not as reliant on athleticism and mobility as Rodgers. There's also the age concern with Rodgers. Before Tom Brady, there was very little history of quarterbacks still playing at age 41 and the only positive history was one decent Warren Moon season with an 83.7 passer rating. Brady was an outlier in his 40s, though Drew Brees also had a good season in 2020 at age 41. The combination of age and injury turns Rodgers into a bit of a mystery heading into this season, which is a bit odd to say about a four-time MVP and one of the greatest players of all time. For what it's worth, Rodgers says he's ready physically.

“My Achilles feels good, you know, I felt really good at the end of last year,” Rodgers told NBC Sports at the American Century Championship golf tournament in mid-July. “There’s always that kind of plateau part. It’s just about getting back into it. I felt good all spring."

The Jets' win total at BetMGM is 9.5, and it seems like the bet there is on Aaron Rodgers' health and effectiveness. If Rodgers, who won MVP in 2020 and 2021, is even above average and everything around him is about what it has been the past two seasons, the Jets should win double-digit games. The Jets aren't favored to win the AFC East, but it's close. They're second at +190 odds (bet $100 to win $190), and the Bills are ahead of them at +165. The Jets' Super Bowl odds of 22-to-1 rank 11th among NFL teams. Rodgers is the favorite for one award but it's not MVP. He's +130 to win NFL Comeback Player of the Year, leading that market.

From Yahoo's Scott Pianowski: "Garrett Wilson enters his third season overdue for a breakout year. All he needs is decent quarterback play. Wilson ranks 11th in wide receiver catches since the beginning of 2022, and he's 18th in yards over that span. This solid production came despite a clown car of New York quarterbacks — Zach Wilson, Tim Boyle, Mike White and the sunset days of Joe Flacco. It's possible no one in that oddball quartet will start an NFL game this year.

"Wilson's one light column through two years has been touchdowns — he's scored only seven times — but again, that's driven by the spotty quarterback play. Assuming Aaron Rodgers can be merely average — and it's plausible he might be better than that — Wilson is a slam dunk to improve his touchdown rate. Rodgers has a history of peppering a primary target if that receiver is clearly the No. 1 on the roster, and Wilson unquestionably checks that box in New York. Wilson isn't cheap as the WR7 in early Yahoo drafts, but there's still a fair chance of him beating that ADP. I'll draft him proactively through the summer."

How good might the Jets' defense be this season? Pro Football Focus ranked every unit in the NFL, and the Jets had the No. 1 ranked defensive line, secondary and linebackers. Wow. An argument can certainly be made that the Jets aren't the best in the NFL at all three levels of defense, but they wouldn't be far from the top spot in any of them. The Jets were No. 3 in defensive DVOA and No. 32 in offensive DVOA last season, which perfectly explains the Jets' 2023 season. The hope is the offense is at least in the top half of the NFL, because there's no reason to believe New York falls out of the top five in defense after two fantastic seasons in a row. Of the 11 projected starters on defense, eight return, including two All-Pros (linebacker Quincy Williams and cornerback Sauce Gardner) and two other Pro Bowlers (defensive end Jermaine Johnson II and defensive tackle Quinnen Williams). One of the new starters, assuming he works out his contract dispute with the team, is defensive end Haason Reddick, who has 50.5 sacks the past four seasons. Perhaps there's a bad streak of injuries or multiple players slow down, but the Jets should be fantastic again on defense.

“I feel like we can win a championship, a Super Bowl,” Gardner said, via the New York Post. “We’ve got the guys. We’ve got the coaches. We’ve got everything we need."

The Jets' failure on offense each of the past two seasons is even more frustrating because they have one of the best running backs and one of the best receivers in the NFL. Breece Hall has been a star since he arrived, and even a torn ACL during his rookie season didn't slow him down. He returned from that injury last season to post 1,585 yards from scrimmage on a broken offense. In the finale he had 178 yards on 37 carries, and while that workload made absolutely no sense for a team well out of the playoff race, it showed Hall was all the way back and ready for a monster 2024 season. No. 1 receiver Garrett Wilson has 178 catches and 2,145 yards in two career seasons with the worst QB play in the NFL. He could be among the league leaders in receiving with Aaron Rodgers throwing him the ball.

The rest of the offense has some questions. The offensive line needed to be redone and it does seem much better. The Jets don't have much at tight end and there's no obvious No. 3 receiver unless rookie Malachi Corley emerges right away. Mike Williams is a good big-play threat with a career average of 15.6 yards per catch, but his injury history is lengthy and he's coming off a torn ACL. Williams is very important to an offense that needs someone to help take pressure off Hall and Wilson. The Jets need to figure out the ancillary pieces but having two superstars to carry most of the load is a good place to start.

The Jets famously haven't been to a Super Bowl since the 1968 season. The hope was that Aaron Rodgers might be able to change that, and while his first Jets season was a bust there should still be the same reasons for optimism. Rodgers' recovery from an Achilles injury is supposedly going well, and maybe he is the rare quarterback like Tom Brady who is still good in his 40s. Make no mistake, the Jets are absolutely stacked around Rodgers. They might have the best roster in the NFL around the QB position, or close. The defense could be the best in the NFL and if Rodgers is just above average and the offensive line comes together fast and stays healthy, there's no reason the Jets can't win the AFC East. Then there's the possibility Rodgers is far better than above average. He's one of the best quarterbacks ever, after all. If that's the case, the Jets could be the AFC's No. 1 seed and win a Super Bowl.

This is the Jets. It's the New York market. Aaron Rodgers is involved. There's a potential distraction every day. Rodgers in particular seems to enjoy the drama, even as he's chiding the Jets for having too much of it. Five of the Jets' first seven games are standalone games; if they get off to a slow start the whole world will be watching. The scrutiny will be enormous from Week 1 on. The way this season goes sour isn't hard to figure out. If Rodgers looks like every other non-Tom Brady 41-year-old quarterback through NFL history, the Jets won't be very good. It's not like offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett will save them. The Jets' floor is still fairly high. If they weren't bad with Zach Wilson, Tim Boyle and Trevor Siemian last season, they won't be bad with a lessened Rodgers, but another 7-10 season will get a lot of people fired. Given how much pressure the Jets are under, it could unravel fast at the first sign of distress.

In theory, putting a four-time MVP with the rest of this Jets roster should result in something special. But there's a reason only Tom Brady, Warren Moon and Drew Brees have posted reasonable seasons after turning 41 years old. Maybe Aaron Rodgers, coming off a torn Achilles, joins that group. Even a diminished Rodgers might be good enough for the Jets. There just needs to be a little bit of skepticism before we see Rodgers play. The Jets are good enough to win the division and maybe much more. They have as much blue-chip talent as any team in the NFL. For now, a top-10 spot in these rankings for a team that hasn't made the playoffs since the 2010 season seems lofty enough. And if Rodgers looks like he's still a top-10 quarterback early this season, get ready for a fun ride in New York.