The New York Jets have not made the NFL Playoffs since 2010. That year, they made it all the way to the AFC Championship Game before losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Since then, the Jets have had one winning season (and two 8-8 seasons) in the longest playoff drought in the league. Last season was supposed to change that trend. A trade with the Green Bay Packers that netted New York four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers was supposed to bring them back to the postseason.
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The offseason hype for the 2023 Jets was through the roof. They were featured on HBO’s “Hard Knocks” and one of the betting favorites to win the Super Bowl. Rodgers was going to return them to relevance and, in the process, train former second-overall pick Zach Wilson the same way he trained Jordan Love in Green Bay.
New York would finally have a sustained run of success. But none of their preseason goals came to fruition.
Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets Had a Tumultuous 2023 NFL Season
All of the hope and excitement that surrounded the Jets going into their Week One matchup against the Buffalo Bills was soon dashed. Rodgers tore his Achilles just four snaps into his Jets tenure and was lost for the season. While New York ended up winning that game, they still stumbled to a 7-10 record that saw their roster exposed for what it was: lacking depth and filled with Rodgers’ cronies who contributed little.
Wilson, who was hoping to learn from Rodgers the same way Love did, was thrust into the starting role again and was simply not good enough. The training he thought he would get from the future Hall of Famer was not given. The coaching staff and front office did not have his back, and he was eventually traded this offseason to the Denver Broncos.
There was also a great deal of criticism of offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, who was hired to help lure Rodgers to New York in the first place. So poor was the offense in 2024 that Robert Saleh was trying to create a position above offensive coordinator that Hackett would have to answer to. Of course, they don’t want to get rid of Hackett because he has Rodgers’ endorsement.
But that all (or at least most of it) is in the past. Rodgers is healthy again and New York has revamped its roster to be more competitive. But there is still a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the team, and Rodgers specifically, which makes his recent PFF ranking quite surprising.
New York Jets Quarterback Aaron Rodgers Is Given a Top-10 Ranking by PFF
Despite the fact that Rodgers only threw one pass in 2023, PFF seems to believe that he is still a top-10 quarterback in the NFL. In their recent quarterback rankings, they slotted Rodgers in as the eighth-best passer in the league:
“Who knows what Rodgers will look like in 2024 coming off his Achilles injury? But if you don’t take the toll of Father Time too far into consideration, Rodgers won MVP in 2020 and 2021, so just one season of play separates him from that back-to-back run. If he’s fully healthy, he has to remain a top-10 quarterback heading into the year. His resume demands it until we see otherwise.”
This ranking placed Rodgers directly ahead of Jalen Hurts, CJ Stroud, and Jordan Love.
The problem with this ranking, though, is that in 2022, his last full season, Rodgers ranked 17th in the NFL in passer rating, 26th in QBR, and threw the fourth -most interceptions in the league.
Even PFF gave Rodgers the 15th overall offensive grade among quarterbacks in 2022, far below his pre-season ranking now.
Perhaps the future Hall of Famer will live up to this preseason ranking, but the most recent seasons on his resume do not seem to warrant his being ranked above most of the other starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
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