NFL Open Thread: doing your own research edition

In a shocking development, Aaron Rodgers has not discovered a miracle cure for Achilles tendon tears:

“Give me the timetables. Give me all the things that you think can, should, or will happen, because all I need is that 1 little extra percent of inspiration. Give me your doubts, give me your prognostications, and then watch what I do.”
—Aaron Rodgers, September 15, 2023

“Being medically cleared as 100 percent healed is not realistic at 14 weeks.”
—Aaron Rodgers, December 19, 2023

Well, there you have it. Two days after the New York Jets were officially eliminated from playoff contention following a 30-0 loss to the Dolphins, and a day before the team would have to make a final decision on whether he would remain on injured reserve for the rest of the year, quarterback Aaron Rodgers said in his weekly paid appearance on The Pat McAfee Show that he will not recover from the Achilles injury he suffered in Week 1 in time to play again this season. His purported bid to beat all previous timelines for recovery after surgery has fallen short.

To be clear, nothing about this is surprising. Since it will not happen this season, Rodgers will most likely return to football activities with no restrictions at offseason practices in April, which puts him almost exactly in line with the recovery timeline the medical community he so resents considers typical for athletes returning from Achilles surgery. The update here is that the 40-year-old quarterback is not a medical marvel, and the 1 little extra percent of inspiration, it turns out, was less relevant to Rodgers’s return than the rates at which fibroblasts release collagen proteins and at which those proteins organize themselves into the tightly packed bundles that make up a strong tendon. What a shock.

The fact that this story has been covered breathlessly for months stems primarily from Rodgers’s unparalleled ability to make himself the NFL’s main character. Within days of his injury, Rodgers had made a series of bold and attention-grabbing pronouncements about his intention to return, including that it would “shock some people” and also something about the healing powers of dolphin sex noises. He has spent much of the season weaving a dramatic comeback narrative, from McAfee’s bully pulpit and other friendly confines, without ever having to back it up.

[…]

Rodgers seems to have been working hard at his rehab, but what he was suggesting he could do was beat the previous fastest return-to-play timeline after Achilles surgery by over a month. (In 2021, then-Rams running back Cam Akers, who was 22 when his injury occurred, compared to Rodgers, who was 39, underwent the same “speed bridge” procedure as Rodgers and returned to play after five months.) As Rodgers himself admitted Tuesday, it’s unrealistic to believe he had a real shot at this unprecedented recovery. To take his comeback attempt seriously was to believe one of the NFL’s most unreliable narrators on medical science and basic logic.

Rodgers seems to have been working hard at his rehab, but what he was suggesting he could do was beat the previous fastest return-to-play timeline after Achilles surgery by over a month. (In 2021, then-Rams running back Cam Akers, who was 22 when his injury occurred, compared to Rodgers, who was 39, underwent the same “speed bridge” procedure as Rodgers and returned to play after five months.) As Rodgers himself admitted Tuesday, it’s unrealistic to believe he had a real shot at this unprecedented recovery. To take his comeback attempt seriously was to believe one of the NFL’s most unreliable narrators on medical science and basic logic.

I doubt the Jets thought that Rodgers would come back, although given that Trump lickspittles like Woody Johnson tend to absorb all of the worldview of the cult quickly who knows for sure. I do, however, believe that being intimidated by Rodgers was the reason they brought in a ludicrously unqualified QB to start two games while the likes of Gardner Minshew and the 90-year-old Joe Flacco and Jake Browning and Mason Rudolph have won critical games to keep their teams in the playoff race.

Indeed, Rodgers has helped ensure that even late-period Bill Belichick is not the worst de facto GM in the AFC East:

The only good explanation for the Jets’ failure to try to find a different solution at quarterback is that they didn’t want to upset Rodgers. They were able to trade for him, after all, only because of how his relationship with Green Bay soured. There’s also plenty of evidence that the Jets are willing to shoot themselves in the foot to assuage Rodgers’s roster preferences: Allen Lazard, the receiver the Jets gave $22 million guaranteed to in March, has 311 receiving yards and one touchdown on the season and was a healthy scratch three weeks ago against the Dolphins on Black Friday. Randall Cobb is earning $3 million to average 4 yards per game. Boyle, another friend of Rodgers, shockingly did not prove to be an upgrade over Wilson and was eventually cut. So instead of making a quarterback move, they bought into a comeback narrative that was never a good bet, either because they so badly wanted it to be real or because they couldn’t bear to tell Rodgers that it wasn’t.

Let’s hope they give even more power to Rodgers next year! We will all be able to use a laugh.