Is Jets' Aaron Rodgers overrated? Where 4x MVP stands in the pantheon of NFL QBs

Aaron Rodgers will begin his second season with the Jets in what will essentially be the start of his sporting chapter in New York, at the second time of asking. After the Jets traded for the four-time league MVP in 2023, the franchise was supposed to become instant Super Bowl contenders. But he played just four snaps before tearing his Achilles and saw his team struggle without him.

It was a terrible year for the Jets. But the hope is that Aaron Rodgers will be the savior. That is the only reason Robert Saleh and Nathaniel Hackett are still in a job despite having some of the consistently worst numbers on offense for the past few seasons.

But will Aaron Rodgers be the answer New York craves? Is he as good as he is being made out? He has won only one Super Bowl in his career and that was the only time he made it to the title game. Even Brett Favre, who followed the same path one-and-a-half decades earlier and joined the Jets from the Packers, had more championship appearances and that did not break New York's title drought.

So, it remains to be seen if Aaron Rodgers can do what his predecessor in Green Bay could not do. To do so, we must ask ourselves the question if the player is as good as he is made out to be.

Is Jets' Aaron Rodgers Overrated?

Simply put, Aaron Rodgers is not overrated. One does not win the NFL MVP award four times by coincidence. He is second on the list, in terms of this honor, to just Peyton Manning, who is already in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

The knock against the former Packers quarterback has always been that he has not won enough championships. He is compared to his compatriots like Tom Brady, who delivered when it mattered the most. Even Ben Roethlisberger and Eli Manning have won more Super Bowls than him despite never winning the regular season MVP.

It is always alleged that Aaron Rodgers failed in the postseason when it mattered the most. And the record bears it out, in a way. But that does not make him overrated as it ignores what he was surrounded with.

For the first half of his career with the Packers, he was playing with Mike McCarthy. Anyone who has seen his coaching in the last few seasons with the Dallas Cowboys will realize that he is not the best at motivating players in knockout games.

But in the second part of his career, he played with Matt LaFleur. He did win two MVPs working under him but again failed to progress beyond the NFC Championship. But one needs to look at what he was dealing with in Green Bay in his final few seasons.

In the season when he won his third MVP award, the Packers lost to the Buccaneers and Tom Brady in the NFC Championship game. The final score was 31-26. After scoring more than 25 points, if the home team still ends up losing, one needs to look at the defense rather than the offense.

In 2021, his final year winning the MVP, they were the top seed and went out to the San Francisco 49ers in the Divisional Round despite being at home and coming off of a bye. In a 13-10 loss, Aaron Rodgers was poor but it became apparent that Davante Adams was his only weapon, and marking the top wide receiver was enough to slow down the offense.

When presented with the context, Aaron Rodgers does not look overrated. Nobody is saying he is as good as Tom Brady or Joe Montana, who won multiple championships and are among the greatest. But someone second on the all-time list of NFL MVPs cannot be considered just another player and slots in right below that top layer.