The offensive linemen standing closest to Aaron Rodgers knew within moments Monday night that his Jets debut had taken an unfathomable turn after only four snaps.
Rodgers had tried (and failed) to avoid a sack at the hands of Bills edge rusher Leonard Floyd, and Rodgers’ legs appeared to get tangled as he went to the ground and briefly grabbed near his left ankle.
He refused the help of his teammates as he slowly got to his feet. Rodgers was trying to walk it off, it seemed. But after limping for a step or two, the 39-year-old sighed and sat down on the turf as MetLife Stadium went silent.
“It wasn’t ideal to see him on the ground that long,” Jets right guard Alijah Vera-Tucker said. “We were trying to lift him, telling him to get up … trying to talk to him and he was just like, ‘I’m not getting up.’
“When any player says that, you know it’s probably not the most ideal thing to happen. So yeah.”
Slowly, the rest of the stadium began to learn how far from ideal Rodgers’ situation was.
Rodgers, face terse and eyes wide, needed the help of two medical staff members to limp to the sideline where an exam table waited under a pop-up blue tent. After about eight minutes a cart pulled up next to the tent. Rodgers rode it about 25 yards to another tunnel close to the Jets’ locker room, where he got off, and needed help to limp into the tunnel and out of sight.
After the game, Jets coach Robert Saleh confirmed the team was fearing the worst.
“Concerned with his Achilles,” Saleh said. “[An] MRI is probably going to confirm what we think is already going to happen, so prayers tonight, but it’s not good.”
The Jets think they’ve lost Rodgers to a season-ending Achilles injury, per multiple sources. But in the aftermath of their stunning 22-16 win over the Bills, the players had not been formally told of the likely awful outcome. It all contributed to the strange mix of emotions in the locker room on one of the most momentous, and shocking nights in franchise history.
‘I wanted to cry’
Some players were visibly distraught, like left tackle Duane Brown who had been assigned to Floyd on the sack that injured Rodgers. Brown could be seen angrily screaming on the field when Rodgers sat down to wait for medical attention. In the locker room, hours later, he simply looked stunned.
Others, like running back Breece Hall and wide receiver Garrett Wilson were clearly experiencing the full spectrum of this bittersweet night.
Both Wilson and Hall both had huge moments that helped the Jets pull out an unlikely win. But both were also subdued because they had known since halftime, when each of them checked on Rodgers, that the outcome was likely going to be a nightmarish one.
“Honestly, bro, when he told me [about the Achilles injury] in the training room at halftime, I wanted to cry for him,” Hall said. “Because I know how much effort and how much time he’s put into coming here, putting time into this team in OTAs and training camp. For his season to be ended like that, it just sucks. Because you want a guy like that around at all times. It’s just sad, you know?”
Wilson said he “didn’t know much” at first about the seriousness of Rodgers’ injury, so he focused on finishing out the first half strong.
“But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t lingering in the back of my head the whole time,” Wilson said. “As soon as I came in for halftime I made sure to check on my dawg. It’s just something you hate to see as a competitor just knowing all we put into this, to be able to perform, not at practice but perform for the game. To see him go down in this first game, so quickly, it sucks man. I’m going to keep him in my prayers. It just sucks.”
Wilson also painted a picture of the halftime scene in the training room with Rodgers. And it was appropriately bleak.
“It’s understood, it doesn’t really need to be said,” Wilson said of his message to Rodgers. “Just that I love him and that we were going to do everything we can to do this in his honor, because he’s special. And the impact he’s had on this team in such a short time is special. We had to go get that ‘W’ for him today. I’m happy it went that way, but like I said, I hate to see that.”
Rodgers’ response?
“He didn’t say anything back,” Wilson said. “And I couldn’t blame him. It’s tough to see.”
Surreal for everyone
It’s almost inconceivable that after so much talk, Rodgers’ season with the Jets could be over so quickly. And it was especially surreal for the players who came with Rodgers from Green Bay (where he played every game in eight of the last nine seasons).
Allen Lazard knew the injury was serious right away. And after all the talk and hype this offseason even he couldn’t help but shrug at the nature of this sport.
“Just seeing how he responded to getting up, seeing him limp off the field, you could tell it wasn’t anything good,” Lazard said. “It’s almost comical with how this offseason played out. And for him to go down in the first game without even completing a pass? This is the game of football, this is the game of life, at the end of the day you have to keep persevering, keep pushing through. We’re going to rally behind him regardless of when he’s going to be back. We’re going to support him. We’re going to love him.”
Longtime teammate Randall Cobb, who walked off Lambeau Field with Rodgers after their last game together as a Packer and joined him with the Jets, blamed the NFL for refusing to install grass fields at all their stadiums.
“We want the NFL to protect the players with grass fields but the NFL is more worried about making money,” Cobb said. “But profit over people. It’s always been the case. … I’ve never been a fan of turf. That’s my stance.”
(It should be noted: MetLife Stadium installed a new turf field this offseason. Rodgers was highly complimentary of the new field when asked about it last month.)
Cobb was also concerned for his teammate and friend. Rodgers is the godfather of one of Cobb’s children.
“You never want to lose your guy,” Cobb said. “I hate to see him go down. I really just want to get out of here so I can call him and talk to him and check on him.”
The road forward
Ultimately, the Jets were able to get the job done against the Bills, who are Super Bowl contenders. And that should be celebrated because it would have been easy to fold after such an earth-shaking loss so early in the season. (We saw 24 hours prior on the same field how quickly a game can spiral out of control for a team that isn’t up for handling adversity on that day.)
And Saleh offered a hint of why his team was able to withstand all of it when he refused to use his postgame news conference as a pity party for a team that had lost its most important player just a few snaps into the season.
“That part sucks,” Saleh said of Rodgers’ injury. “[But] I’m going to enjoy this win. Winning in the NFL is hard regardless of who the quarterback is. Personally, I don’t hurt for me. I don’t hurt for our locker room. I hurt for Aaron and how much he has invested in all of this. I’m still going to say a prayer. I’m still going to hold out hope, but my heart is with Aaron right now and no one else.”
Some of the defenders said that even though Rodgers wasn’t on the field, he had still given them the tools that helped them upset the Bills on Monday night.
“Since he’s been in the locker room and been on this team, he’s been talking about ‘Super Bowl, Super Bowl, Super Bowl,’” linebacker Quincy Williams said. “So he’s changed the [team’s] mindset. When he went down, everybody just rallied around and said, ‘Hey, man, we know what he wants. We know what we’ve got to get done.’ So we just took on that mindset and basically played like he was still there. The mindset was still: ‘Hey, exactly what he wants. Let’s get it.’ Same mindset as if he was there.”
The Jets locker room definitely was more upbeat than one might expect after such a devastating injury. The confidence that defined their offseason had not waned.
“He did a lot to help this team get to where it is right now,” linebacker C.J. Mosley said, adding that the Jets can still be a Super Bowl team without Rodgers. “I truly believe that.”
But the real test will come in the days ahead when reality starts to set in that Rodgers’ isn’t going to have that impact this season. And with his 40th birthday coming up in December, and now likely a lengthy Achilles rehab ahead, there’s no guarantee he’ll play another snap for the Jets.
Cornerback D.J. Reed wasn’t fully aware of the prognosis for Rodgers until after his interview session, when a reporter told him the team feared the worst.
“Damn, he tore his [expletive]?” Reed said, his eyes wide as he tried to process the news he’d just been given.
Several Jets admitted they were rattled after Rodgers went down, but they overcame it. Now, knowing the severity of the injury, they’ll have to do the same on a much larger scale and with the Cowboys looming on Sunday afternoon.
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Story by Andy Vasquez, NJ.com. Staff writer Darryl Slater contributed to this report.