Aaron Rodgers<\/a> experiment did not work out for the Jets.<\/p>\nRodgers suffered a season-ending Achilles tear in Week 1 of 2023, then led the Jets to a 5-12 record last year in his return.<\/p>\n
But rather than retire, Rodgers, 41, decided to return for a 21st season, signing with the Pittsburgh Steelers after the new Jets regime released him.<\/p>\n
Rodgers passed for 3,897 yards, 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions last year, and his production improved toward the end of the season.<\/p>\n
The Steelers aren\u2019t looking at Rodgers to be their savior as the Jets once did, but how much he has left in the tank will dictate whether Pittsburgh can extend its run without a losing season to 22 years.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
Bear down<\/p>\n
Plenty was working against Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams in year one.<\/p>\n
His offensive line was a mess.<\/p>\n
His offensive coordinator, Shane Waldron, was fired in November, and his head coach, Matt Eberflus, was fired less than three weeks later.<\/p>\n
Thomas Brown was promoted from passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator to interim head coach all within a month.<\/p>\n
That extreme lack of continuity would be difficult for any QB to endure, let alone a rookie already navigating the expectations that come with being the first overall pick.<\/p>\n
But the situation is much better for Williams this year.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
The Bears hired Ben Johnson, the offensive mastermind who helped turn the Detroit Lions into a high-scoring juggernaut, to be their head coach, and they retooled their O-line in the offseason.<\/p>\n
Chicago also used high draft picks on tight end Colston Loveland and wide receiver Luther Burden, who join D.J. Moore and Rome Odunze as weapons for Williams.<\/p>\n
With all of that support, it\u2019s now up to Williams to take the next step in his development and prove he\u2019s worthy of the hype.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 At long last, the NFL is back. Our nearly seven-month drought comes to a merciful…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112049,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[626,64,63,631,4632,80032,1261,1268,5386,1252,5365,27250,1234,72407,3055,6587,1243,6579,2363,5347,629,35192,40524,628,30572,1245,35193,1231,593,6584,1260,1241,22812,13672,85,7508,627,34775,23821,30663,14068,1272],"class_list":["post-112048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-aaron-rodgers","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-bears","tag-bowler-parsons","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-caleb-williams","tag-chiefs","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-colston-loveland","tag-d-j-moore","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-darius-slay","tag-detroit-lions","tag-green-bay","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-jalen-hurts","tag-jayden-daniels","tag-jets","tag-joe-burrow","tag-josh-sweat","tag-kenny-clark","tag-lamar-jackson","tag-luther-burden","tag-micah-parsons","tag-milton-williams","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-rome-odunze","tag-saquon-barkley","tag-sports","tag-super-bowl","tag-tee-higgins","tag-the-cowboys","tag-the-eagles","tag-tom-brady","tag-travis-kelce","tag-washington-commanders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}