Aaron Rodgers is coming off one of the most disappointing seasons of his career.
In his final year as Packers quarterback, Rodgers threw for his lowest yardage total in a full season.
His touchdowns were down and his interceptions were up.
That came after back-to-back MVP seasons.
In his first season with the Jets, Rodgers is not using 2022 as a motivator but he is confident that he can play better than he did a year ago.
“I’m not looking at this like I have to bounce back or do anything,” Rodgers said. “I just have to play the way I know how to play. I’ve been working my ass off for the last six months to try and put a better product on the field than last year and I expect to.”
Rodgers still put up good numbers for most quarterbacks.
It is just his standards are higher than most.
He threw 26 touchdowns and had 12 interceptions, the most he had thrown since 2008.
The Packers went 8-9 and Rodgers was hampered by a thumb injury for most of the season.
The 39-year-old will take the field Monday night against the Bills for his first regular-season game with the Jets.
He would not share what his personal goals are for the season but acknowledged he does set them.
“Every year you set personal goals and have an idea how you’d like to play and how it plays out,” Rodgers said. “It doesn’t work that way. Sometimes it’s statistically less than you think. Sometimes it’s way more. It just depends on the flow of the game and what happens during red-zone stuff and how good you are in situational football. But if you’re doing well on third down and doing well in the red zone, everything kind of takes care of itself.”
The Jets are entering this season with lofty expectations, mainly because of the arrival of Rodgers.
He has not shied away from those expectations and has said he believes the Jets are capable of winning the Super Bowl.
That was why he chose to come to the Jets when the Packers decided to trade him.
But the talking now ends and the games begin. We’ll see if the Jets and Rodgers can live up to the hype of the last five months.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” Rodgers said. “There’s a lot of ideas about how good we’re going to be, how good everybody else is going to be. Nothing really matters until you get on the field and you go out there and play. It takes a few weeks to figure out kind of your identity on both sides of the ball. We’re going to be a work in progress, but we’ve got some good tests out of the gate and we’ve got to start fast on Monday.”
Rodgers was asked Thursday about his comments at his introductory press conference in April about the Jets being capable of winning a Super Bowl and whether his resolve has been strengthened over recent months.
“I don’t think I needed the resolve to be strengthened at all,” he said. “There’s a part of that that’s speaking things into existence, the idea of manifestation. The other part is a realistic look at the locker room and knowing that there’s anywhere from 6-12 teams every year that can do it and that we’re one of those 6-12 teams.”
The Jets are not just counting on Rodgers. They believe they have an elite defense, one that finished in the top five last year and has stars Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams leading the way.
Rodgers was asked Thursday if having a defense that strong will help him manage the game. He clearly does not like the term “game manager.”
“I’ve never liked a sentence that has ‘manage and ‘game’ in the same sentence,” Rodgers said. “I feel like as a quarterback you’re there to make plays. Sometimes the play is to check it down and be smart, but you’ve got to be opportunistic. When you’ve got a great defense, which I feel like we do, I think you have to play how you’ve always played and be smart. You can take some chances when they’re there. It’s all about a percentage game and trying to find the highest-percentage matchup every time.”
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