Aaron Rodgers Is Holding on for Dear Life

Athletes are, as a general rule, more confident and less neurotic than the rest of us. It’s part of the job requirement. If you go into a football game unsure of yourself, you’re going to get knocked on your ass. Athletes — and not just the top ones — don’t sit around contemplating the universe, questioning their ability to succeed; they almost all believe they are the best and will never lose. This kind of overconfidence can cause them immense difficulty in their personal lives. But sports are instinctive and kinetic and urgent; thoughtfulness and self-awareness aren’t just besides the point, they’re problems to be avoided.

That’s why it’s so poignant to watch an old athlete at the end of their career, to witness them realize that the physical skills and abilities that have made them special, that have driven their entire lives since they were small children, have faded or are gone forever. They are forced to rely on experience, and to hope their wits, not their instincts, can save them. This makes them more human and more relatable. For the first time, you can tell: They’re a little scared.

And that’s why on Monday night, I found myself, for the first time in ages, feeling a bit of empathy for Aaron Rodgers. The future Hall of Fame quarterback has taken us all on quite a journey the last few years. Once a likable sports celebrity, he has brain-pilled himself into becoming a grotesque conspiracy theorist. He lied about his vaccine status, accused Jimmy Kimmel of consorting with Jeffrey Epstein (and believed that UFO sightings were a way to distract us from the Epstein scandal), didn’t believe Sandy Hook was real, denied the 2020 election results, and was seriously considered a potential running mate of RFK Jr., along with about a million other lunatic fringe moments. And he did it all with that terminally online bro smirk of the supremely self-assured, that “well you’re the one who’s upset, I’m just telling hard truths that you can’t handle” attitude that has become increasingly unmistakable in our culture, and synonymous with relentless bullshit. Rodgers was the king of this. He had become the most insufferable athlete in sports. He seemed awfully proud of it, too.

But on Monday, Rodgers didn’t look confident, assured, or smug. He just looked old. And scared. Monday night, Rodgers played his second game as quarterback for the New York Jets. His first one was, of course, a year ago, when he lasted exactly four plays before suffering an Achilles tear, one of the most devastating injuries in sports. It was a long and hard road back, one many (including me) weren’t sure he could manage; he is about to turn 41, after all, and is now the oldest player in the NFL. There he was, though, up against the San Francisco 49ers and their many massive lineman who were eager to pound him, and his Achilles, into the Levi Stadium dirt. (Including Leonard Floyd, the same guy who injured him last year.) He wasn’t an edgelord, or a dorm-room philosopher, or a newly minted-by-Netflix “enigma.” He was just a 41-year-old man with a bum Achilles trying to avoid men half his age and twice his size trying to tear him apart.

The Jets were soundly beaten by the 49ers, 32-19, and while Rodgers wasn’t New York’s central problem, he didn’t look much like his old self, either. He appeared hesitant, not just slow but cautious, as if he had stared his athlete mortality in the face and knew it could all come collapsing down again with one wrong step. He did have a few moments where he vaguely resembled vintage Rodgers; he is one of the best quarterbacks of all time, after all. He pulled off a couple of beautiful passes, including a back-shoulder toss to Garrett Wilson on what would turn out to be the Jets’ best touchdown drive. He also threw a classic Rodgers touchdown, a 36-yard deep ball on a free play after the 49ers jumped offside. But on the whole, he looked old, slow, and very, very careful. And yeah, at times, a little scared.

That is to be somewhat expected in his first game, especially against a defense as good as the 49ers. And it’s not impossible to see Rodgers succeeding down the line. This is an extremely talented Jets team, one of the most promising in their franchise’s history; it’s why everyone was so excited about Rodgers joining the team last year in the first place. Rodgers doesn’t have to be his old MVP self for the Jets to win; they need him to make the simple throws, give them occasional shots deep downfield and otherwise stay out of the way: Rodgers could theoretically get back to the playoffs again, for the first time since 2021, simply by avoiding big mistakes, giving the ball to running back Breece Hall, and letting his skilled teammates do the heavy lifting. That very much could happen.

But it will require Rodgers to be something he hasn’t been in many, many years: just a normal football player. It will require him to come to terms with his age, what he can and can’t do anymore, and it will require him, potentially, to take a step back, to release some of his constant Main Character Energy. Is he capable of that? Or is he too proud to be the star of his own Netflix reality, to be the “enigma”? Rodgers can probably use his newfound athlete mortality to his advantage on a team that needs him to be more reliable than spectacular. But that would require a kind self-awareness that he hasn’t seemed capable of in a long time. Can he pull it off? I guess we’ll have to wait for him to do his own research on that one.