NFL fans will have to wait a little while longer for Aaron Rodgers’s highly anticipated Jets debut. The future Hall of Famer will not be playing in Thursday’s Hall of Fame Game, which pits New York against the Browns in Canton, Ohio.
Rodgers was dealt to the Jets in April after a down year that saw Green Bay miss the postseason for the first time since 2018. His new team is hopeful he can lead them back to the playoffs and end a franchise-record 12-year drought.
Just how high are expectations for Rodgers’ first season in the Big Apple? New York has the seventh-best Super Bowl odds (+1600) even as its quarterback is set to turn 40 in December.
Can Rodgers return to his MVP-level play from 2020 and 2021 or will his first year with the Jets look more like his final one with the Packers?
Let’s take a look at a few of his player props for the 2023 season to answer that question.
Over (-110) | Under (-110)
Rodgers’ 3,695 passing yards in 2022 were his fewest in a full season of his 18-year career. Without Davante Adams, who was traded the previous summer, Rodgers' stats took a bit of a hit. He’ll have better receivers at his disposal this year in New York, most notably Offensive Rookie of the Year Garrett Wilson. The second-year pro is joined in the receiver room by former Packers Allen Lazard and Randall Cobb.
Rodgers has thrown for over 4,000 yards 10 times before and if he does so this season, he’ll become the second Jets quarterback to ever do so and the first since Joe Namath in 1967. That’s a reasonable expectation for Rodgers given his resume so long as he plays 17 games.
Passing Touchdowns: 28.5
Over (-110) | Under (-110)
Rodgers’ 6.2% passing touchdown rate is one of the highest in league history. He’s led the NFL in that metric four times and in total passing touchdowns three times before. However, Rodgers threw a touchdown on just 4.8% of his attempts in 2022 and finished with 26 scores. That was good enough for seventh-most, though it was still well short of the 37 he threw in 2021 or his career-high 48 in 2020.
It’s certainly in the cards for Rodgers to have another 30-touchdown season, as he’s done eight times before, but it might be more likely that he falls just short on this prop and finds himself somewhere in the high 20s. The Jets are up against one of the league’s toughest schedules in 2023 and the AFC East specifically is home to some of the league’s best secondaries.
Interceptions: 9.5
Over (-110) | Under (-110)
Rodgers has historically been a turnover-averse quarterback. He’s had the league’s lowest interception rate six times and he’s only thrown 10 or more picks three times before. However, one of those instances was in 2022, when 12 of 542 attempts were intercepted.
Jumping from Green Bay to New York shouldn’t be a major adjustment for Rodgers, who will be reuniting with former offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett and Packers teammates Lazard and Cobb. For those reasons, he should be able to keep his interception numbers in the single digits as he has done for most of his career.
