Aaron Rodgers and Justin Fields nearly faced each other last season with the Jets and Steelers, respectively. Now they will, only on opposite sides. Rodgers is with the Steelers after starting for the Jets in 2024, and vice versa for Fields. In Fields’ case, he only started the first six games, including the opener, due to injury.
But both Fields and Rodgers join an apparently very small group of quarterbacks who, after starting the opener for one team, have faced that team in the opener the following season. They will be just the seventh and eighth quarterbacks to ever do it, and it will be the first time two faced each other in the same opener.
While most are fairly recent, the first quarterback to play a season opener against the team he started for the previous year in the opener was Jack Kemp against the Chargers in 1963, according to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press. Since then, we have seen Kurt Warner (2005), Chad Pennington (2008), Sam Darnold (2021), Baker Mayfield (2022), and Russell Wilson (2022) do the same thing. Aaron Rodgers and Justin Fields will make seven and eight and do so in the same game. Dubow adds that Fields would be the first of the eight to actually win both season openers if the Jets beat the Steelers.
Although he only started due to injury, Fields recently admitted he considered re-signing with the Steelers this offseason. But the Jets, who released Rodgers, offered him $40 million over two years, with $30 million guaranteed.
In his opener for the Jets last season, Rodgers went 13-of-21 for 167 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. It’s been a while since he’s had a strong opener, which might not bode well for the Steelers. As for the Jets, they have to decide how much they want to lean into Fields’ running ability.
The Steelers patiently waited this offseason for Aaron Rodgers, who only signed shortly before minicamp. In a relatively weak quarterback class in free agency, Justin Fields signed quickly with the Jets. And unlike the Giants, they didn’t draft a quarterback in the first round. Or at all.
In the past 20 years, we have watched a gradual shift across the NFL. All but only the very, very elite quarterbacks are untouchable. Teams are moving on from struggling starters much sooner or accepting trades. The only quarterback on this list to leave in free agency was Fields, even Rodgers feeling the sting of a release for the first time.
