Aaron Rodgers and Jets' season doesn't begin until the fifth snap
Aaron Rodgers of the Jets is helped off the field during the team's first possession of the first quarter against the Bills at MetLife Stadium on Sept. 11. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Kickoff for the game against the 49ers on Monday is scheduled for 8:15 p.m.
The Jets’ season will begin sometime shortly after that.
The reason for the delay is that almost everyone associated with this regular-season opener in San Francisco, participant or observer, will be holding their collective breath through the first four snaps when the Jets offense gets the football. Four snaps, you see, is exactly how long Aaron Rodgers’ first season with the Jets lasted on a Monday night nearly a year ago before he suffered a torn Achilles and the team’s season, in all logic, ended with him limping off the field.
So whenever the ball is hiked to Rodgers for the fifth time, whether that be on the first drive or not, there is bound to be an audible exhale. A sigh of relief that we’ll at least get to see a little bit more of this crazy plan concocted way back in the earliest days of 2023 to import a Hall of Fame quarterback into New York and have him salvage a franchise that hasn’t been to the playoffs in 13 straight years . . . and perhaps even be afforded the opportunity to see how it plays out over the coming months.
Before any of that can happen, though, Rodgers and the Jets have to get to that fifth play.
Robert Saleh would barely even acknowledge the significance of that barrier.
“No, we're fine,” the Jets coach said with an uncomfortable laugh on Thursday. “If lightning, lightning . . . never mind.”
He seemed poised to say something about it striking twice. He quickly struck that thought.
Why tempt things?
Rodgers was fairly confident talking about the milestone that will officially put behind him the injury that has so far defined his tenure with the Jets.
“I mean, yeah, there might be a little smirk after the fourth one,” Rodgers said on Thursday. “I don't know. We'll see. I'm sure they'll catch it [with TV cameras]. But I'm in a good mind space.”
A good physical space, too. Rodgers hasn’t missed more than a handful of reps this summer, and most of those were as a precaution rather than because of any irritation or setback. That’s one of the main reasons why there is so much optimism around this Jets team, why they overtly talk about the championship aspirations that the quarterback has been trying to manifest for them since he arrived here.
But on Monday night let’s put the Super Bowl aside for a little while. It’d be nice just to see Rodgers actually complete a pass, something he didn’t have the time to do in his brief cameo last year.
“I mean, part of the turn-the-page was last year coming back to practice,” he said of his accelerated return to workouts (although he was never fully cleared to participate) in December before the Jets’ elimination from playoff contention ended any hope of an expedited comeback. “Then another part was OTAs. And training camp. And all that. So I feel ready.”
Rodgers may be prepared to “smirk” at exceeding last year’s abbreviated stint, but he admitted there will be times leading up to the game when he reflects on his journey with the Jets.
“I’ve really had a year to remember in a lot of ways,” he said. “Some really difficult things with some great things as well, so there's always a perspective moment during the anthem to collect your thoughts and kind of send gratitude out to the universe for the opportunity to be standing on the field in pads. I'll be really excited about that.”
The Jets will be excited for him, too. And themselves for that matter.
“For him, for everyone in the locker room, the fans, ownership, it's been a long time coming,” Saleh said. “You want the success for everybody, not just in the organization, but all the people who love to watch us on game day. Every player in the locker room has a ‘why’ when they enter a season, so you want it for all of them.”
For 17 months, the Jets have been telling the world about what Rodgers’ presence has meant to each and every person in their building, how he dazzles with his no-look passes at practices, how the players gravitate to him for advice on everything from breaking down film to the life lessons only a 40-year-old, 20-year veteran can bestow.
Until now, we’ve mostly had to just take their word about all that stuff.
On Monday, the rest of us will finally get to see what the Rodgers Era of Jets football actually looks like. What it is capable of. What he can do at this age, coming off this injury, fighting against players half his age as well as the half-century of football misery that drags behind the Jets wherever they go.
Ideally all of that will last beyond those four snaps this time.
And then the season will begin.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
