Aaron Rodgers threw 7,661 passes in his regular season career.
He had hoped that total would be at least one figure higher, and now admits that it should be.
Rodgers reported to Florham Park on Tuesday to begin Jets training camp and his 20th NFL season, looking to overcome a torn Achilles tendon suffered on the fourth snap of the second act.
But first, Rodgers answered a nagging question that lingered after that fateful Week 1 game against the Bills: Why didn’t he throw to an open Garrett Wilson before he was fired by Leonard Floyd and the 2023 season ended?
“I think I did everything too fast because it seemed like the safety was going to come down before the snap,” Rodgers told former Post columnist Ian O’Connor for his upcoming book about the quarterback’s life, “Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers.” “And I was thinking about moving it down the backfield. [receiver]. So maybe I should have just thrown it straight to Garrett.”
Splitting left on first down at the Jets’ 43-yard line, Wilson sprinted toward midfield, staying a step or two ahead of his opponent.
Rogers appeared to drop to the third level, plant the ball on the ground and throw it to Wilson.
Jets coach Robert Saleh later said the actual sequence “extended beyond the timing of the play.”
“Garrett was completely flat on his path, and I thought, if he were to move at all vertically… [Micah Hyde] “I almost hit it,” Rodgers said in the book. “So I looked to my left and tried to come back and throw it to my right. I almost [Allen Lazard].”
almost.
Instead, Rogers tried to outrun the oncoming Floyd, but failed. Floyd fought off a cut-block attempt by 38-year-old left tackle Duane Brown.
The cut block requires the offensive lineman to run into the defender’s legs, lower his hands and lower his body to the ground to clear space for the quarterback’s quick pass. But Brown had shoulder surgery the previous offseason and barely practiced in the summer.
“We don’t really cut blocks, especially these days,” the Super Bowl-winning offensive line coach told the author. “No matter how athletic these guys are, they just jump the cut. … You can’t afford to lose a franchise player that way.
“I have a lot of respect for Duane Brown, but Leonard Floyd is not a guy I can block for. He’s too good of an athlete. He’ll run over you.”
When asked whether he is generally opposed to such blocking techniques, Rodgers cited the Green Bay Packers’ left tackle and close friend, according to the report.
He told the author, “I didn’t like David Bakhtiari cutting blocks. He was really bad at it.”
But was it a good idea for Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett and offensive line coach Keith Carter to ask Brown to cut blocks from a younger, more athletic defender who had a history of firing Rodgers?
“I should have thrown it to Garrett,” the quarterback replied. “That’s the way I see it.”
Former Jets quarterback and current WFAN host Boomer Esiason said in his book that Rodgers should never have caught the ball and gotten sacked.
“I know it wasn’t the offensive line that hurt him,” Isiahson said.
O’Connor reported that Rogers’ friend, fitness entrepreneur and podcaster Aubrey Marcus, drove from MetLife Stadium that night to his New Jersey home on the Montclair/Cedar Grove border.
Punter Thomas Mostid called Rodgers after midnight after the Jets’ dramatic overtime win, and the two cried together on the phone. For inspiration, Mostid sent his teammate a 2013 Kobe Bryant post that went viral after the Lakers superstar tore his Achilles tendon.
“People think he has it all,” the punter said of Rodgers. “He’s got all the money, he’s had a great career, he’s got all these other things. But he just loves to play ball. It’s pure. You know what I mean? He doesn’t think about losing a marketing opportunity. He was looking forward to playing with this team and trying to do something special this year, and now it’s not going to happen for him.”
Unless that happens to Rodgers and the Jets in 2024.
