It’s the first game-week Monday of the 2025 NFL season, which means the New York Jets’ game-planning for the Pittsburgh Steelers has kicked into high gear. By mid-week, the Jets’ game plan will be mostly set in stone, and they will begin installing it on the practice field.
In what is definitely a coincidence rather than masterful storytelling by the NFL’s script writers, Aaron Rodgers will be the first opposing quarterback that Aaron Glenn faces as the HC of the NYJ.
Beyond the obvious storylines, this is a fascinating matchup because of the on-field history shared by two men who cut their teeth in the NFC North.
The history between Aaron Rodgers and Aaron Glenn
During his time with the Green Bay Packers, Rodgers played four games against the Detroit Lions while Glenn was their defensive coordinator. The results of those games were a tale of two seasons.
Rodgers caught Glenn at the right time in 2021. While Rodgers was in the midst of his fourth and (likely) final MVP season, Glenn was a rookie defensive coordinator leading a rebuilding team.
In a Week 2 home game against Detroit, Rodgers had an extremely efficient performance, completing 22 of 27 passes for 255 yards, four touchdowns, and no interceptions. Green Bay picked up the 35-17 win.
Rodgers’ second game against Detroit was a meaningless Week 18 meeting, as the Packers already had the NFC’s top seed secured. He only played the first half, but was dominant, completing 14 of 18 passes for 138 yards, two touchdowns, and no picks.
Both sides experienced 180-degree turnarounds in 2022. Rodgers went from an MVP to a below-average starter who seemed to be experiencing the start of his decline. Glenn’s Lions, sparked by an influx of talent, tripled their win total.
With better players at his disposal and two games to learn from, Glenn seized control of his matchups with Rodgers. Detroit swept Green Bay in 2022, and Glenn’s defense was the reason why.
For most of the season, the Lions’ high-powered offense (fifth-ranked 26.6 PPG) carried a developing young defense (28th-ranked 25.1 PPG allowed), but the opposite was true in the two Green Bay games. In those contests, the Lions scored just 35 points, but they held Rodgers and the Packers to a paltry 25 points.
Rodgers struggled mightily against Detroit in 2022, completing 40 of 70 passes for 496 yards, two touchdowns, and four interceptions. His passer rating was 64.9. For perspective, that is similar to JaMarcus Russell’s career passer rating (65.2).
Rodgers is lucky his numbers did not look even worse, as he had a fifth ugly interception called back due to a penalty that did not affect the play.
It was quite the phenomenon. Detroit’s defense struggled for most of the 2022 season. Yet, their two best performances came against a four-time MVP who shredded them for well over a decade.
How did they pull it off?
A brilliant game plan.
Glenn’s success against Rodgers resulted from a highly intentional game plan designed to attack one of the aging quarterback’s most glaring weaknesses.
Aaron Glenn’s secret recipe for Aaron Rodgers
Glenn identified a crack in Rodgers’ game and did everything possible to exploit it.
While not up to his MVP standards, Rodgers was off to a solid start in 2022 until he fractured his thumb on the final play of Green Bay’s Week 5 game against the Giants. From Weeks 1-5, he was throwing the ball fairly well, ranking ninth out of 32 quarterbacks in completion percentage over expected (+2.0%).
In his first three games after the injury, Rodgers began showing signs of decline, starting with a blowout home loss to the Jets that was fairly shocking at the time. From Weeks 6-8, Rodgers dropped to 26th out of 33 qualifiers in CPOE (-2.6%).
That led straight into Green Bay’s Week 9 road game against the Lions. Noticing the slippage in Rodgers’ arm, Glenn decided to test the ailing 38-year-old.
Glenn was known for his heavy usage of man coverage in Detroit. In 2024, the Lions led the league with a 47.7% man coverage rate, according to NFL Next Gen Stats.
Glenn dialed that up to 11 in his games against Rodgers.
Recognizing that the aging quarterback was losing his ability to stand strong in the pocket and deliver throws into tight windows, Glenn forced Rodgers to attack one-on-one matchups all game long. It worked wonders in the Week 9 victory, and Glenn replicated the strategy to further success when the teams met again in Week 18.
Across his two games against Detroit in 2022, Rodgers threw an utterly staggering 57.1% of his pass attempts against man coverage, which is almost 10% higher than the Lions’ league-leading rate (47.7%) from the 2024 season.
It is on these plays that Detroit made Rodgers look the most foolish. When throwing against the Lions’ man coverage, Rodgers had a 52.5 passer rating, -0.26 EPA per dropback, and a -50.2% DVOA. He hurled three picks on just 40 pass attempts (7.5% interception rate) and completed just 52.5% of his passes.
That’s… really bad.
Better yet for Glenn and the Jets, there is plenty of reason to believe this game plan will still work in 2025.
In 2022, Glenn’s decision to utilize an absurdly high rate of man coverage may have been motivated by Rodgers’ thumb injury. It was too early to declare that the reigning back-to-back MVP was falling off.
Three years later, though, Rodgers is definitively no longer the quarterback he once was. One Achilles tear and one mediocre season later, Rodgers is a middling 41-year-old stopgap – and his issues against man coverage have only worsened.
Man coverage is a nightmare for Aaron Rodgers
The Jets witnessed firsthand how much Rodgers struggles against man coverage at this stage of his career. Glenn was not in the building yet, but he has surely seen the film and been fed the numbers.
According to FTN Fantasy, here is a comparison of Rodgers’ 2024 metrics against man and zone coverage (ranks out of 40 qualifiers):
- Aaron Rodgers vs. man coverage: 6.3 yards per attempt (30th), -0.02 EPA per dropback (28th), -7.4% DVOA (27th)
- Aaron Rodgers vs. zone coverage: 7.1 yards per attempt (14th), 0.08 EPA per dropback (17th), -3.1% DVOA (23rd)
While Rodgers was not outstanding against either coverage in an overall mediocre year, he was clearly more comfortable against zone. This is best shown by his stark differences in yards per attempt and EPA per dropback.
And it makes perfect sense for a quarterback of this age. Across 241 career starts, Rodgers has seen it all. If he spots zone coverage, he will identify the soft spot in milliseconds. He can hit the depth of his drop and quickly spit the ball out to the open receiver before the pressure gets home or the window becomes contested. Rodgers’ brain takes precedence over his body, mitigating the effects of his aging.
Against man coverage, though, the throwing windows are typically tighter, and the pressure usually comes faster since man coverage is often used with a blitz. Forced to make quick decisions under duress and throw into one-on-one matchups, Rodgers’ declining body is thrust into the driver’s seat, overriding his brain.
The critical aspect of this is to put Rodgers under pressure. If the man coverage looks are not paired with pressure, Rodgers still has enough arm talent to sit back in a clean pocket and dice up the defense.
That is why Glenn must attack Rodgers with the blitz.
Aaron Rodgers struggles against the blitz
In addition to man coverage, Glenn was also known for his heavy blitz usage in Detroit. The Lions ranked third with a 38.4% blitz rate in 2024.
This is another area where Rodgers has struggled.
According to FTN Fantasy, these were Rodgers’ numbers when blitzed and not blitzed in 2024 (ranks out of 40 qualifiers):
- Aaron Rodgers vs. blitz: 6.1 yards per attempt (33rd), -0.06 EPA per dropback (30th), -13.1% DVOA (29th)
- Aaron Rodgers vs. no blitz: 6.9 yards per attempt (21st), 0.07 EPA per dropback (18th), -0.9% DVOA (22nd)
It is quite apparent that the aging quarterback experiences some panic when he sees an extra rusher coming.
Blitzes exploit one of the prevailing weaknesses in Rodgers’ game at this point of his career: His lack of confidence in the pocket.
Rodgers’ arm strength and accuracy have not actually fallen off too much in a vacuum. However, Rodgers’ mobility has dwindled, and as a product of that, he lacks confidence in his ability to handle pressure. Resultingly, he displays a fear of standing tall in the pocket against pressure, often looking jittery and rushed, which has caused him to make panicked, early decisions. This leads to examples of both inaccuracy and failing to target open receivers downfield.
The Jets pick up this blitz perfectly, but Rodgers rushes his mechanics in anticipation of the pressure, misfiring badly to an open Garrett Wilson.
The Jets do a nice job of picking up this six-man pressure against Pittsburgh, and Wilson is open on the slant against man coverage, but Rodgers panics and tries to throw a checkdown while fading away, despite not facing any real threat of being hit.
Blitzing and man coverage exploit Rodgers in similar ways. Since they are often used simultaneously, it makes sense that his numbers are poor in both areas.
Some coaches prefer to use zone blitzes, but Glenn is especially likely to use man blitzes, explaining why Rodgers was so poor in his two games against Detroit in 2022. While ramping up the man coverage, he was ramping up the blitzes at the same time. These two factors worked hand in hand to put Rodgers in uncomfortable situations for the majority of both games.
The time has come for Glenn to pull that game plan back out of his pocket.
Come at him with everything you’ve got
With thousands of miles on his tires and mounting injuries in recent years, Rodgers is prone to seeing ghosts on the field. He can still sling the rock as well as anyone against air, but when facing even just the threat of pressure, his body will naturally react the way that any 41-year-old body with a repaired Achilles and 241 NFL starts would react.
For Glenn and Jets defensive coordinator Steve Wilks, the game plan on Sunday should be obvious: go full throttle with the man blitzes. It might seem like a risky approach to some, but the truth is, we now have multiple years of evidence that the present-day version of Rodgers is likely to crumble in these situations.
If Rodgers makes the Jets pay for their aggressiveness by hitting a shot play or two, so be it. They must continue bringing the heat for four quarters. As the hits stockpile and the man-blitz opportunities accumulate, Rodgers is likely to cough up a turnover or two at some point.
Remember, Rodgers has not played a live game in eight months, and he has never played a live game with this team, these teammates, or this scheme. He will be working through all of those obstacles in a road environment against a team full of defenders who are familiar with his tendencies, while facing a defensive coordinator who dominated him the last two times they matched up.
You cannot allow a guy to start getting comfortable in that situation. It is imperative to come out aggressively and make him feel every ounce of the weight on his shoulders.
Expect New York to challenge Rodgers with a bevy of man blitzes, daring the 41-year-old to beat the man coverage of Sauce Gardner, Brandon Stephens, and Michael Carter II while Quincy Williams and Jamien Sherwood dart through the A gaps.