Aaron Rodgers Returns to Bay Area for 2024 Opener Against 49ers

Former Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers will return to the Bay Area for his first game since his season-ending injury last September 11, and it will be the first Monday night game of the 2024 season.

Rodgers presumably will be sufficiently recovered from his torn Achilles tendon to be the New York Jets starting quarterback for their 2024 season opener on Monday, September 9 in Santa Clara, Calif., against the reigning NFC champion San Francisco 49ers. That game will be played just south of the Bay Area city of Berkeley, where Rodgers played his college ball at Cal, and not too far from the Northern California town of Chico, where he grew up.

The entire NFL schedule was announced Wednesday night, and Rodgers comeback bid against the 49ers was one of the highlights of the 2024 schedule.

Rodgers will be 40 years old when he faces the 49ers and will be 41 by the time the 2024 season ends. Plus he will be coming back from a serious injury, one that some professional athletes never completely recover from.

Rodgers suffered the injury on the Jets’ fourth offensive play of the 2023 season, then submerged himself an aggressive rehabilitation treatment regimen that might have enabled him to play in the 2023 postseason if the Jets had qualified for the postseason.

Now the question is whether someone his age can come back from that serious injury and perform close to the level that earned him four NFL MVP awards, including back-to-back MVPs in 2020 and 2021. The latter award was just three years ago, so there is belief among the Jets that he can perform close to that level in 2024.

When the Jets acquired Rodgers from the Packers prior to last season, they though he would be the missing piece in the Jets’ effort to become a playoff team for the first time since 2010. The Jets ranked third in the NFL in total defense in 2023, but finished with a 7-10 record with Rodgers on the sidelines.

The 49ers will offer a stiff challenge for any quarterback, especially an older quarterback who might have mobility issues. San Francisco was third in the NFL in scoring defense, yielding just 17.5 points per game, and they recorded 48 sacks. San Francisco defensive end Nick Bosa had 10.5 sacks in 2023 and 18.5 in 2022. The 49ers reached the Super Bowl last season, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Rodgers played two seasons at Cal – 2003 and 2004 -- before being a first-round pick of the Green Bay Packers in the 2005 NFL draft. He was a 49ers fan growing up in Northern California, and wanted the 49ers to take him with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2005 draft. But the 49ers took quarterback Alex Smith instead, and Rodgers dropped all the way to the No. 24 pick, to the Packers.

Rodgers said that night the 49ers would be sorry they didn't draft him. Instead, the 49ers now have Brock Purdy, who was the very last pick of the 2022 draft but finished fourth in the 2023 MVP voting.

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