SI:AM | Aaron Rodgers’s Return Just Got a Bit Less Improbable

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I suspect I’m not the only one skeptical about Aaron Rodgers’s potential return.

In today’s SI:AM:

???? Our 2023 Sportsperson of the Year

???? Aaron Rodgers’s planned comeback

???? LSU’s star returns

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How realistic is this?

Eleven weeks after tearing his Achilles tendon on his fourth snap as a Jet, Aaron Rodgers took an important step yesterday toward an unprecedented, expedited return to the field.

The Jets yesterday opened the 21-day practice window for Rodgers to return from injured reserve. The window expires just before the Jets’ Dec. 24 game against the Commanders, which Rodgers has circled as a possible date to make his return.

It’s unbelievable that Rodgers was on the field at Jets practice yesterday after crumpling to the turf on Monday Night Football. That’s a severe injury that is season-ending for almost every NFL player. The typical timeline for a return to the field is nine to 12 months. Add in the fact that Rodgers turns 40 on Saturday and the idea that he’d be ready to return to an NFL field just three and a half months after his injury is perhaps literally unbelievable. In recent years, Rodgers has built his whole public persona around being a contrarian, so it’s easy to dismiss his attempted comeback as another example of his unorthodox views on medical science.

“Give me all the timetables. Give me all the things you think can, should or would happen, because all I need is that extra little one percent of inspiration,” Rodgers said days after his surgery. “Give me your doubts, give me your prognostications, and then watch what I do.”

But Rodgers can’t fake having a healthy Achilles just to stick it to the haters—he’ll need to be cleared by a doctor to take the field. And while coach Robert Saleh said yesterday that Rodgers has been cleared for “functional football activity,” he’s yet to be cleared for contact. No matter what message Rodgers wants to send by hurrying back, it could be a moot point if he doesn’t get okayed by a doctor.

There is some precedent for players returning more quickly than usual from a torn Achilles. Running back Cam Akers tore his Achilles in a preseason workout in 2021 but was able to return for the Rams’ final game of the regular season and was a key contributor during the team’s Super Bowl run. But Akers’s return timeline—about five and a half months—was considered exceptionally fast. And that’s two months longer than what Rodgers is attempting. Akers and Rodgers, for what it’s worth, had their surgeries performed by the same surgeon, the renowned Dr. Neal ElAttrache, who explained in a ’22 Los Angeles Times article about Akers’s recovery that the key to quick return is undergoing surgery soon after the injury and beginning rehab as soon as possible. Rodgers had his surgery with ElAttrache two days after the injury. The operation included the use of an internal brace known as a “speed bridge” that is intended to hasten recovery time.

But the strength of Rodgers’s repaired tendon isn’t the only factor in his potential return. In his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday, he added an important caveat, saying that it also depends on whether the Jets are “alive” in the playoff race. At 4–7, New York’s postseason hopes are very much on life support at the moment. The only AFC team with a worse record is the Patriots at 2–8. The Jets’ next two games before Rodgers’s potential return are against teams that are leading their divisions, the Falcons and Texans. They’ll need to win both of them to have a realistic shot at making the playoffs. If not, we likely won’t see Rodgers on the field until next season.

The best of Sports Illustrated

• After breathing new life into the Colorado football program, Deion Sanders is Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year.
• Jerry Rice wrote a first-person piece for us about how Sanders went from being a hated rival to an invaluable teammate.
• Conor Orr argues that Aaron Rodgers needs to play this season so that the Jets can figure out their plan for the future.
• Michael Rosenberg explains how the upcoming 12-team College Football Playoff will be even more chaotic than the current four-team format.
• Ahead of the Pac-12 championship game, Pat Forde looks at the savvy coaching hires that led Oregon and Washington to this point.
• LSU star Angel Reese will be available for the team’s game tonight, coach Kim Mulkey announced yesterday. Emma Baccellieri has more on her return and the mystery that still surrounds her absence.
• I wrote yesterday about the awkwardness that the NBA in-season tournament’s point differential tiebreaker caused. Rohan Nadkarni makes the case that players shouldn’t be concerned about having to run up the score to advance in the tournament.

The top five...

… things I saw last night:

5. A flopping call on LeBron James.

4. A big dunk by Kawhi Leonard.

3. Jimmy Vesey’s concentration to bat the puck out of the air into the net.

2. Arkansas fans storm the court after beating Duke.

1. Jalen Suggs and Cole Anthony recreating that famous LeBron and Dwyane Wade celebration.

SIQ

Which Auburn player returned a missed field goal 109 yards to beat Alabama on this day 10 years ago?

• Tre Mason
• Quan Bray
• Corey Mason
• Chris Davis

Yesterday’s SIQ: The first Army-Navy football game was held Nov. 29 in which year?

• 1879
• 1890
• 1901
• 1914

Answer: 1890. The game was held at West Point, but Navy came away with a decisive 24–0 victory.

While the Naval Academy had been playing football for years (its first game was in 1879 and it began playing annually in ’82), the game against Navy was Army’s first competitive football game.

The captain of that first Army team was Dennis Michie, who was killed in the Spanish-American War in 1898. When the school opened its new football stadium in 1924, it was named after Michie.