Photo by Brandon Sloter/Image Of Sport/Getty Images
There’s a greater chance dolphin sex heals injuries than Aaron Rodgers returning this season.
As soon as Aaron Rodgers tore his achilles in the Jets’ season opener against the Bills he was done for the year. He knew it, the Jets knew it, everyone who understands injuries of this nature knew it. That didn’t prevent Rodgers from turning his rehab into a circus.
Now, Rodgers has confirmed what was always going to happen. The Jets’ quarterback won’t return in 2023, and will focus on being ready for Week 1 of 2024. Then, less than 24 hours later there was this.
Rodgers, in what’s become an all-too familiar cycle, is keeping himself in headlines. In early November Rodgers said he could return “in a few fortnights,” which would have meant getting back on the field by Christmas Eve. This would have been months earlier than even the most optimistic prognosis — but that was the whole point.
Objective truth is mutable in Rodgers’ world. He relishes in being a self-professed “free thinker,” which he uses to grant himself immunity to scrutiny. To Rodgers, it doesn’t matter what you think, because that’s just your opinion. It doesn’t matter what the world thinks, because they’re haven’t woken up. It doesn’t matter what modern medicine says, because it’s a field full of charlatans and liars.
This allowed him to pretend he’d be the first athlete in history to return from a torn achilles in three months. It was a calculated bet on Rodgers part, and he moved the goalposts from a Christmas return, to a return if the Jets were still in the hunt for the playoffs. Now it’s a move to being on IR, knowing he’ll never play a down this season.
For a while it looked this this bet wasn’t going to pay off. The team managed to win five games on the back on its stunning defense, which could have actually held Rodgers to his word — but losing to the Dolphins in Week 15 shut the door and allowed Rodgers to sigh with relief, knowing he wouldn’t need to try and come back, having a built-in excuse for 2023.
“If I was 100 percent today, I’d be definitely pushing to play, but the fact is, I’m not.”
Rodgers was never going to play this season. No way, no how. That’s not a knock on alternative medicine, because it definitely has its place — but Rodgers’ achilles was repaired by modern western medicine, and this tells us it’s impossible.
The surgical repair of an achilles takes anywhere from 6-9 months to fully rehabilitate, with the former referring to light movement, and the latter applying in high-impact sports. That could put Rodgers’ return to the field in full condition to be around Summer of 2024 — in time for training camp. While he’s currently out of the boot and able to do very light work, there is no planet in which he could (or should) complete in an NFL game after three months.
Forget saying you’d come back at “100 percent,” right now Rodgers is at about 30 percent — whether he’ll admit it or not. Even if, as it’s been suggested, Rodgers had a speedbridge achilles repair, the estimated timeline for recovery is no sooner than 16 weeks to begin full, sports-specific rehabilitation. That would have put his earliest rebab date to safely work at December 26th, and notes indicate it will take “significantly longer” to return to action.
So, congrats to Aaron Rodgers I guess. He gambled he’d never need to actually return in 2023, and it paid off. Now he gets to use the lack of playoffs as justification for not returning, rather than admitting that teasing a Christmas Eve return was never going to happen. It keeps he mystique around his approach a secret — and we’re left to wonder if he cracked the code to recovery.
It’s a hell of a grift.
