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Jets coach Robert Saleh would be 'shocked' to see Aaron Rodgers retire after Achilles tear

profilephotocropby:Suzanne Halliburton•09/13/23•

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aaron rodgers robert saleh
Tom Horak-USA TODAY Sports

It’s basically just math. Aaron Rodgers faces surgery to repair his Achilles and a rehab time of up to possibly a year. He could be close to his 41st birthday by the time he’s healthy.

Few quarterbacks try to play in the NFL past 40. And Aaron Rodgers, who turns 40 in early December, already was the oldest player in the league thanks to Tom Brady‘s retirement after last season. CBS Sports notes that this is the first NFL season that not a single 40-year-old player made an opening day roster. And now Rodgers is lost for the season. It’s definitely a young man’s game.

Still, Jets coach Robert Saleh doesn’t see his QB giving up football, although the two haven’t had the time for the conversation.

“I haven’t gone down that road with him,” Saleh told reporters after confirming Aaron Rodger’s official diagnosis. “I’d be shocked if this is the way he’s going to go out. But at the same time, for him, he’s working through a lot of things he needs to deal with. That will be the last thing I talk to him about.”

Aaron Rodgers suffered a complete tear of his left Achilles at the end of the fourth offensive snap for the Jets. (Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports)

After Aaron Rodgers, who are the oldest in the NFL

Matt Prater, who kicks for the Cardinals, now is the second-oldest active player in the NFL after Aaron Rodgers tore his Achilles. (Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports)

Saleh told reporters that Aaron Rodgers is consulting with doctors now on his surgery. The Achilles tendon does a ton of work for any human, especially for a finely-tuned athlete.

“It allows you to push off,” Dr. Blazs Galdi, told NBC. “If you want to run, to jump, to push your foot and ankle down, take a ballerina position, explode out of the gate, it allows you to do all those things.”

Galdi is an orthopedic specialist who teaches at Rutgers Medical School. Galdi provided even more details on the Achilles. “It pretty much does everything. Not one thing, nothing, can be done without it.”

Aaron Rodgers can take solace in some Jets history. Quarterback Vinny Testaverde ruptured his Achilles in the 1999 season opener. Testaverde was almost 36 when it happened. He came back in 2000. And the next year, he led his team back to the playoffs.