Somehow, and someway, Aaron Rodgers has made his personal timeline for his Achilles tear recovery — returning later this season — seem realistic.
The latest example came Thursday when the Jets released the latest installment of their “One Jets Drive,” and Rodgers was shown walking around the locker room without crutches before their Week 4 game against the Chiefs.
“Let me just do my thing, OK?” Rodgers said to another person who was walking in front of him. “Let me show them I can walk.”
And then, he did.
Rodgers gripped both crutches in his right hand and hobbled over toward his locker, which prompted him to joke that the Jets “didn’t phase me out yet.”
Then, Rodgers — who was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and what appeared to be the No. 8 chain gifted by Sauce Gardner ahead of the season — sat down in front of his locker, put on a different pair of sneakers and gingerly took some additional steps.
“Is there anything uglier than that?” Rodgers joked to a handful of people around him as he walked, including Jets linebacker C.J. Mosley. “But if it helps me walk, though, that’s all that matters, right?”
The 39-year-old quarterback visited the Jets and attended their “Sunday Night Football” loss to Kansas City, though he expressed frustration that the message of his conversation to the team was leaked.
Rodgers has reiterated his intention to return this season ever since getting sacked by the Bills’ Leonard Floyd on the fourth offensive snap of the year and tearing his Achilles, which prompted surgery later that week.
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In an Oct. 3 interview on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Rodgers said he’s “well ahead of the normal protocols” in his recovery, but he also added a caveat that the Jets would need to be in the playoff conversation for him to risk a return.
It echoed the tone of his first public comments — also in an interview with McAfee — following the injury, when he begged for everyone to feed him the doubts, timetables and predictions for what could happen.
That’s because Rodgers later said, “Anything’s possible.”
“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” Jets head coach Robert Saleh said on Oct. 6. “Obviously, I think he gets stronger when people say you can’t, when people doubt him. I think he’s the type of guy that gets stronger and that’s why I like him so much, because when someone tells me I can’t do something, well, watch me. It’s the same thing.
“He’s got that mindset where if someone tells him he’s not capable or something is impossible, he’s like, you’ll see. So no, I don’t put it past him.”
Without Rodgers, Zach Wilson has inherited the offense and produced mixed results.
Wilson managed just 170 yards, one touchdown and three interceptions in Week 2 against the Cowboys, with another miserable performance following the next week against the Patriots, but the offense found some rhythm in Week 4 — when Wilson outplayed Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes — and then Sunday in Denver.
Still, Rodgers returning this season would put the Jets, at least on paper, in a better situation, even with the strides from Wilson.
He hasn’t divulged too many details about his recovery plan and timeline during interviews with McAfee, but the Jets’ clip provided some of the most tangible evidence yet that progress, indeed, has been made.