Though things didn’t end well with the New York Jets for quarterback Aaron Rodgers, the belief is that the 41-year-old quarterback still has some juice left in the tank, in large part due to the way he closed the 2024 season.
While the Jets were downright terrible throughout much of the 2024 season, finishing 5-12, and Rodgers was a mess early before the four-time NFL MVP turned it on down the stretch. In his final five games of the season, Rodgers had a passer rating of 98.3, threw for 1,270 yards, nine touchdowns and three interceptions. That included one game of 339 passing yards against the Miami Dolphins and then a four-touchdown game in Week 18 to close out his Jets tenure.
Those numbers show that Rodgers played well down the stretch, though it was a lost season at that point. He finished with 3,897 passing yards, 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions on the year.
ESPN’s Mina Kimes and NFL analyst Ollie Connolly, who discussed Rodgers on the latest episode of “The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny” in which they did a QB draft, don’t buy into the notion that Rodgers played well late in the season.
In fact, both Kimes and Connolly believe Rodgers was one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL based on metrics.
“No, no. He was terrible. He was terrible,” Connolly said of Rodgers and the final stretch of games in the 2024 season, according to video via the show’s YouTube page. “I understand the stats aren’t so bad. The guy was trying not to get hit and go out the season clean is what was happening.
“He was fossilized.”
Again, Rodgers threw for 1,270 yards, nine touchdowns and three interceptions in the final five games of the season, including a passer rating of 98.3. That stretch also included that 339-yard performance against the Miami Dolphins in which Rodgers turned back the clock.
Then, he went out and threw four touchdowns against the Dolphins to close the season, too. It certainly didn’t look like a guy that was just getting rid of the ball quickly and avoiding hits to get out of the season cleanly. He played hard and looked like Rodgers in certain moments.
Stats can’t tell the whole story, but neither can advanced metrics and other non-traditional stats.
For Kimes, her eyes matched up with some of the numbers that she pulled, which ranked Rodgers as one of the worst quarterbacks in football in that span of games.
“Dead last in air yards per [attempt], 32nd. Pardon me, I think Tua [Tagovailoa] was below him. [He was] 34th in completion percentage over expected,” Kimes said of Rodgers. “But you know, this was just like, what do your eyes tell you was happening?”
The numbers weren’t anywhere close to poor for Rodgers late in the season. In three of the final five games, Rodgers had an average yards per attempt higher than 7.6. The league leader in that category on the season was Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson at 8.8. If you want to look at adjusted air yards per attempt, Rodgers had 8.58 or higher in three of the final five games.
The league leader in that metric was again Jackson at 10.15. So, Rodgers wasn’t that far off.
Additionally, Rodgers’ Time To Throw in the final five games were the following: 2.70, 3.41, 2.84, 2.49 and 2.89. Guys like Matthew Stafford, Dak Prescott, Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow had faster TTTs on the season than Rodgers’ average of 2.65. It wasn’t an age thing.
The numbers showed he could still play some decent football late in the year. Does that mean he’s going to return to high-end status? No, probably not at his age. But he’s not a guy who was that terrible in the final five weeks and propped up by empty numbers.
