Aaron Rodgers Opens Up About ‘Ordeal’ After Injury

As New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers prepares to return to the football field after suffering a season-ending Achilles injury on the fourth snap of the year in 2023, he sat down with NFL Network’s Albert Breer to discuss his emotions on the sideline and his expectations for 2024.

“The low point was not just sitting in the training room at MetLife, after it happened. It was flying home [to California] and then really the first 13 days not being mobile. It was hard. I had surgery out there with Dr. [Neal] ElAttrache. Having people take care of me, and I can’t really move, it’s a whole ordeal to just go to the bathroom and sleep. You’re in pain. I’m not a big pain med guy. There were definitely some low points.”

“Then watching the team struggle was hard, knowing what we built through the offseason and training camp, when people got to see the energy and the enthusiasm through Hard Knocks. There was a lot of excitement around our squad. There were definitely some low moments there.”

The Jets did not reach the playoffs last season and finished 7-10, cycling through multiple quarterbacks as a talented roster floundered. But the team expects to make a deep postseason run this time around, even with a 40-year-old quarterback coming off a serious injury.

“When we signed Tyron [Smith], Morgan [Moses] and John [Simpson], and then we added Mike Williams, that’s when the excitement started to pick up. We added four guys that have played a lot of football. It brings some veteran leadership to the locker room. It’s going to be a different feel. You just kind of knew it in OTAs, that we were a little bit different. That coincided with the amping up on the pressure to win now for all of us, Robert [Saleh] and [GM] Joe [Douglas], too.”

Hard Rock Bet set the Jets’ odds to make the playoffs this season at -175 and their over/under win total at 9.5.