Is Aaron Rodgers washed up?
Well, I’ll present the facts, and you decide. Out of 37 qualified quarterbacks, here is where Rodgers ranks in the 2024 season:
- 32nd in completion percentage over expected (-1.9)
- 30th in net yards per pass attempt (5.5)
- 27th in QBR (50.9)
- 23rd in adjusted EPA per play (0.07)
- 23rd in passer rating (88.9)
For a guy who has been named MVP four times, I would certainly say that qualifies as “washed up.”
However, I think there is nuance to Rodgers’ fall-off. It is not as simple as him being an old man who lost his physical ability. While that is part of the equation, it is not the main factor in his decline.
Rodgers has already been declining physically for many years now. For instance, his rushing yards per game have declined in seven consecutive seasons dating back to 2016.
One could even say that Rodgers’ most significant physical drop-off occurred before he won his two most recent MVP awards. After averaging 10+ rushing yards per game in each of his first 12 seasons as a starter, Rodgers dropped to single-digit rushing yards per game for the first time in 2020, yet he still proceeded to win back-to-back MVPs in 2020 and 2021. In fact, Rodgers’ rushing YPG in 2024 (4.5) is closer to where it was in 2020 (9.3) than his 2020 rushing YPG was to his level merely two years earlier in 2018 (16.8).
Even when he won his two most recent MVP awards, Rodgers had already made the transition to being a very pocket-bound passer who wanted to get the ball out quickly. In 2021, Rodgers’ average time-to-throw was 2.59 seconds, which ranked seventh-fastest among 39 qualifiers. That was Rodgers’ career-low at the time. It’s not far from his 2.53 mark in 2024, which ranks third-fastest out of 39 qualifiers.
So, Rodgers’ mobility was long gone even before his Achilles injury in 2023. Despite this, he was still able to succeed at an elite level because of his tremendous football IQ and wildly impressive arm talent.
And, truth be told, I think both of those traits still exist in Rodgers’ game today. Throw Rodgers on the practice field and he can still sling it with the best of them. If he couldn’t, there wouldn’t have been any hype surrounding him and this Jets team going into the season. We would have seen the signs of his decline in training camp. He would have made foolish decisions, badly misfired on throws, moved sluggishly, and, overall, just looked like a blatantly deteriorated version of himself. Nobody who watched him saw this, though. The consensus was that he looked great and was ready for a fantastic season.
That’s because a practice environment could never allow us to see the main factor that has ultimately driven Rodgers’ decline: the subconscious mental side effects of aging that only manifest themselves under live-game pressure.
Aaron Rodgers’ jitters
Rodgers still has excellent arm strength and accuracy. You see it multiple times each week. What he no longer has is confidence in his body under the pressure of getting hit in a live game. And we’re not talking about how he reacts when he actually is pressured or hit; rather, Rodgers seems to be perpetually anticipating that he might get hit, causing him to play like he’s under pressure even when he’s not.
At 40 years old and coming off the most serious injury of his career – on top of nagging injuries that plagued him throughout both this season and the 2022 season – Rodgers is rattled mentally. He lacks the confidence to stand tall in the pocket and scan the field decisively. It appears as if he is always worried about getting hit, leading to hesitancy and jitteriness when neither is called for. This causes him to miss big plays down the field and become detrimentally prone to checkdowns.
We were never going to see this on the practice field. You cannot simulate the pressure of a live football game in practice. That’s why it feels like such a shock to see Rodgers perform this way in the regular season after he looked so good in the offseason. Physically, he’s just fine. His age is primarily showing between the ears, not in his arm.
I don’t think Rodgers is “scared” of getting hit, per se. If he were scared, he would have retired after 2023, or exaggerated an injury to sit on the bench a few weeks ago. I could never accuse a four-time MVP quarterback of being afraid to get hit, especially when the guy tried his hardest to get back on the field mere months after tearing his Achilles. Rather, the effect appears to be subconscious.
Look: Rodgers is old. He’s taken thousands of hits in the NFL. His Achilles is still only 14 months removed from a full tear at 39 years old. He’s dealt with nagging lower-body injuries this year, and his thumb bothered him throughout most of 2022. All of this mileage adds up. It’s caused Rodgers to lack the confidence that his body can afford more hits. I don’t think he wants to react that way, but his body is forcing him to, because it’s been through a lot and probably does not want to be put through much more.
One stat perfectly sums up Rodgers’ shortcomings in this specific area. When throwing from a clean pocket this season, Rodgers is averaging just 6.4 yards per attempt, which ranks 35th out of 40 qualified quarterbacks. He is ahead of only Spencer Rattler, Deshaun Watson, Cooper Rush, Jacoby Brissett, and Bryce Young. That’s… not very good company.
This tells us that, even when Rodgers is well-protected, he is unable to push the ball down the field. That points to the main issue at hand: Rodgers puts himself under pressure even when the pressure isn’t there.
Rodgers’ decline in confidence is the most apparent when he is well-protected. Under pressure, Rodgers actually looks better, because he is forced to operate on a fixed timer. With pressure imminently arriving, Rodgers has no choice but to accept a hit and just get the ball out instinctively. In these moments, his arm talent has shined the brightest. As a matter of fact, Rodgers ranks much better when pressured than when kept clean:
- Under pressure: 6.4 Y/A (17th out of 40), 81.3 passer rating (9th), 4 TD, 0 INT (2nd)
- Kept clean: 6.4 Y/A (35th), 90.9 passer rating (28th), 13 TD, 7 INT (22nd)
Therein lies the problem; whereas most quarterbacks are substantially more efficient when kept clean, Rodgers barely performs any better when kept clean, if at all. This is because his hesitancy and jitters cause him to become overly conservative when kept clean. He anticipates hits that never come, leading to checkdowns in situations where a big shot downfield could have been attempted.
Here are some examples of how Rodgers arrives to his 35th-ranked Y/A in clean-pocket situations.
Aaron Rodgers missing big-play chances from clean pockets
The Jets’ pass protection is utterly dominant on this play-action play, giving Rodgers a pocket that reminds me of the ones Zach Wilson enjoyed at BYU.
To the near side, Garrett Wilson is running a deep out route. The CB is playing outside leverage, which might be what prompts Rodgers to continue in the progression. However, the CB is selling out heavily toward the inside, which gives Wilson the leverage to eventually separate on the out break; it’s just going to take some time. Luckily, the Jets’ OL gives Rodgers just that.
With the protection afforded to him, Rodgers needs to hang onto that read a beat longer and trust his talented WR1 to create separation on an out-breaker against a CB selling heavily to the inside. If Rodgers had stuck on it for just another split-second and thrown with some anticipation, Wilson created separation and was open for a big play. Instead, Rodgers looks off Wilson too quickly and checks the ball down to Tyler Conklin for 4 yards.
It was 1st & 10, so it’s not the worst thing in the world to take 4 yards there, but this is an example of how you end up ranking next to Spencer Rattler in Y/A from a clean pocket. When the offensive line gives you that much time and space, and your WR1 has a 1-on-1 with no extra help in the area, you need to give him a shot. This one 4-yard checkdown on first down might not be terrible in a vacuum, but these plays have added up for Rodgers, ultimately making him one of the league’s least efficient QBs in terms of yards per attempt.
This is one of the best examples of Rodgers’ unforced jitters. It encapsulates the subconscious mental decline that is primarily responsible for his struggles this year.
It’s 3rd & 4. The Jets’ OL does a phenomenal job and Rodgers is under no imminent threat of being pressured. Yet, he double-clutches twice while going through his reads, and while he still has plenty of time to unpack his options, he panics and throws to Allen Lazard short of the sticks with a defender right there to make the stop.
If Rodgers had stayed patient and evaluated all of his options, he would have seen that Wilson had a 1-on-1 with no safety help. With inside leverage on the CB and no help over the middle, all Rodgers had to do was lob that thing out in front and toward the middle, and Wilson could have run under it for a touchdown. Instead, Rodgers’ jitters caused him to settle.
It’s 2nd & 2, which is a great time to take a shot.
Pre-snap, it looks like a potential two-high coverage, but the Cardinals begin rotating into Cover 3 just before the snap. This should signal Rodgers to test out Wilson’s go route to the right side, as the single-high coverage means there is no safety directly over the top.
As the play progresses, Wilson becomes even more appealing. The single-high safety shifts further and further from Wilson, while Wilson creates a little bit of separation with a subtle hesitation. Wilson is not “open,” per se, due to the off coverage from the Cover 3 corner, but it’s a 1-on-1 on 2nd & 2 with a WR who has shown time and time again that he is always open if he’s 1-on-1. You take this shot here (especially with the Jets down 25 at this point).
Despite plenty good enough protection to check his deep options and then come back underneath, Rodgers never even looks at Wilson. From the snap, he seems solely focused on moving the chains. Rodgers locks in on Davante Adams, jitters a few times, and then forces the ball to Adams despite tight coverage, resulting in an incompletion.
Likely a point of no return for Aaron Rodgers
It is difficult to see Rodgers pulling himself out of this funk. With his 41st birthday coming up next month, the hits will only hurt more and more as time goes on. If he cannot stand confidently in the pocket now… why should he be trusted to do it when he’s another year older?
Sure, Rodgers will be another year removed from his Achilles injury next year, but who’s to say he will not suffer more injuries between now and the end of the 2025 season? Rodgers’ nagging thumb injury was already offered up as an excuse for his statistical decline in 2022, and now, nagging injuries are again being used to try and excuse his play in 2024. This is the third straight season of Rodgers being banged up. It is extremely unlikely that he will ever go through a complete season of pristine health where he is completely unaffected – almost no quarterback does, and it is especially unlikely for a 41-year-old with an accumulating injury history.
Rodgers has been healthy enough to play every snap. He isn’t playing poorly because he is injured. He is playing poorly because his past injuries have given him the yips within the constraints of a 40-year-old body, and that is something you simply cannot fix.
At this point, this is probably just who Rodgers is, and it is hard to think of a reason it will change or to cook up a way to scheme around it. The Jets have gotten the ball out as quickly as anyone to minimize hits on Rodgers, but it’s led to the offense becoming predictable, stagnant, and overly safe. Whenever the offensive line protects well and buys Rodgers time to take a shot, he sees ghosts and checks the ball down.
Father Time catches up to us all, and he’s got a warm embrace around Aaron Rodgers. Seeing how bad things have already gotten, the Jets would be kidding themselves to give him another shot in 2025. Rodgers’ mental fortitude under the pressure of in-game duress has deteriorated to a point of no return. Barring a miracle, that will not change no matter who the Jets bring in to coach the offense.
It’s no slight on Rodgers. He’s a legend, and going into 2023, there was enough juice left in the tank for the Jets to roll the dice and see if he had a last hurrah in him. Who knows? Maybe things would have gone differently if not for the Achilles injury perpetuating the decline that was already occurring at 39 years old.
That’s an alternate reality, though. In this reality, Rodgers averages more yards per attempt from a clean pocket than only Spencer Rattler, Deshaun Watson, Cooper Rush, Jacoby Brissett, and Bryce Young. And if that’s what he’s doing at 40, he will probably continue doing it at 41.
The Jets’ Aaron Rodgers decision comes down to whether or not they think he can significantly improve in 2025, because they cannot put up with his 2024 production next year. Not only is his production sub-championship caliber, but it is untenable for a bridge quarterback who will have a $23.5 million cap hit while bringing extra attention to the team.
If the Jets think they can salvage Rodgers to a level of league-average starting quarterback play, he could be a worthwhile bridge quarterback in 2025 at his cap hit (even with the drama he brings). However, given the things we analyzed in this article, I argue that Rodgers is highly unlikely to improve on his 2024 production in 2025, therefore making it a no-brainer for the Jets to move on.
This doesn’t look like a quarterback who might get better with more time to heal from an injury or by switching to a new offensive system. He looks like a battered veteran quarterback with a terminal case of the yips.
