An MRI Tuesday morning has reportedly confirmed the Jets’ worst fears: Aaron Rodgers is done for the season with a torn Achilles tendon.
The Jets’ staff was quick to identify Rodgers’s injury as an Achilles issue and coach Robert Saleh spoke immediately after the game as if the results of the MRI were a foregone conclusion. One video of Rodgers’s injury perhaps indicates how the Achilles tear was able to identified so quickly. A video shot from the end zone shows the back of Rodgers’s calf ripple as he is tackled by the Bills’ Leonard Floyd—an unfortunately clear indicator of a torn Achilles.
A close up of the play on which Aaron Rodgers’ calf reverberates, and he winds up with what the Jets now believe is an Achilles injury, via @ACLrecoveryCLUB: pic.twitter.com/bcGeWGGiL0
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) September 12, 2023
The Rodgers video is nearly identical to a similarly devastating Achilles tear. When NBA star Kevin Durant tore his Achilles in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, a closeup video showed his calf rippling in the exact same way Rodgers’s did.
Durant, now with the Suns after a stop with another New York franchise, the Nets, sent the injured quarterback well wishes on social media after the injury.
I’m so sick right now. Get well soon 8…
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) September 12, 2023
It’s never a good idea to diagnose injuries from afar, but in retrospect, that angle of Rodgers’s injury should have made it clear from the start what he was dealing with.
