Aaron Rodgers was electric on Thursday night against the division-rival New England Patriots, completing 27 of 35 passes (77.1%) for 281 yards (8.0 per attempt) and two touchdowns. He looked better physically than he had in quite some time, moving around both within and outside the pocket and repeatedly making plays outside of structure, while also doing his standard “fire the ball into the smallest window possible in a way that makes your brain explode” type of stuff several times as well.
Despite the strong performance, however, a quirky streak of Rodgers’ was extended: He has now gone 25 straight games without throwing for 300 yards or more. The last time Rodgers surpassed the 300-yard mark came in Week 14 of the 2021 season with the Packers, when he went 29 of 37 for 341 yards and four scores in a destruction of (who else) the Bears.
It’s not like Rodgers has necessarily been bad since then. He’s completed 66.4% of his passes, but only at an average of 7.0 yards per attempt. He has 41 touchdowns and 13 interceptions in 24 games. (That doesn’t include the season opener against the Bills last year.) His 17-game averages of 353 completions, 530 pass attempts, 3,693 yards, 29 touchdowns and nine interceptions are obviously not Peak Rodgers kind of stuff, but most teams would take that from their quarterback across a full season.
His full-season pace so far this year, after the destruction of the Patriots, is 329 for 487 for 3,536 yards, 28 scores and six picks. That’s not necessarily what the Jets thought they would be getting when they traded for Rodgers, but it is WORLDS better than what they’ve gotten from the quarterback position for the better part of this century.
It’s safe to say that even if he doesn’t hit the 300-yard mark at any point throughout the rest of the season, the Jets and their fans will be thrilled if Rodgers performs the way he did on Thursday night. If you were trying to make the case for what the Jets would look like as a real contender, it would look a lot like what they did to the Patriots.
