At 40 years old (turning 41 in December), Aaron Rodgers is not the quarterback he used to be. Some would argue that the New York Jets quarterback should still be considered among the top-tier signal-callers in the NFL. However, that isn't the case in a recent poll run by The Athletic in which 50 NFL coaches and executives were asked to group 30 veteran quarterbacks into five tiers.

Rodgers, who was a no-brainer, top-tier, no-questions-asked elite quarterback during his peak years ended up in the second tier. An unnamed NFL head coach even put Rodgers in the third tier, seemingly believing that the future Hall of Famer gunslinger is not going to have a bright season ahead.

“You go back and watch those first four plays before he got hurt, he did not look good,” the coach said.

“He looks old. If they can’t protect him and they can’t run the football, it’ll be just what you saw late stages in Green Bay. He became ineffective. I’m looking at what he is, not who he is.”

What's 2024 going to be like for Jets' Aaron Rodgers?

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers (8) shares a laugh on the sidelines during the second half against the Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium
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Rodgers is essentially starting over with the Jets. The world saw Rodgers play in only four snaps with New York in 2023 before suffering a season-ending Achilles injury in just his first game with the Jets. With a virtually non-existent sample of Rodgers leading the Jets on the field, people will have to mostly rely on what he did with the Packers during his last season with his former team to project a 2024 outlook for him. In the 2022 season, Rodgers went just 8-9 as a starter for Green Bay, amassing 3,695 passing yards and 26 touchdowns to go with 12 interceptions — his most in a season since 2008.

That kind of production can be considered fantastic for most other quarterbacks, but subpar by Rodgers' lofty standards, especially when considering that he was coming off back-to-back MVP seasons at that time.

Regardless of what NFL coaches and executives think of the aging Rodgers who is coming off a devastating injury, the Jets will have to trust him to be the product they expected would deliver the goods on the field like no other New York quarterback did in the several years before he arrived in East Rutherford.

Together with Rodgers in Tier 3 are Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens, Matthew Stafford of the Los Angeles Rams, Justin Herbert of the Los Angeles Chargers, CJ Stroud of the Houston Texans, Dak Prescott of the Dallas Cowboys, Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions, Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles, Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers, Kirk Cousins of the Atlanta Falcons, and his successor in Green Bay, Jordan Love.