Although supporters and experts may make every effort to forecast a team’s season, injuries are genuinely unpredictable.
In sports, injuries often serve as a leveling factor, particularly in the NFL.
No matter how talented a club is in the off-season or how many elite players they bring in, injuries have the power to drastically change the course of a game.
Take it from the New York Jets: an injury can change the entire season.
Arriving at the 2023 NFL season with a recent trade for Aaron Rodgers, the Jets were feeling very good.
It was expected that Rodgers would help the team change and provide them a chance to qualify for the postseason for the first time in more than ten years.
Nevertheless, the Jets’ hopes of making the playoffs appeared to be gone with his Achilles injury in the opening game of the season.
Although Rodgers had an unanticipated injury, some commentators chastised head coach Robert Saleh all season long for failing to muster the team and qualify for the playoffs in spite of the obstacles he had to overcome.
Recently, LeSean McCoy defended Saleh’s performance from the previous year on an FS1 piece titled “First Things First.”
“With this roster, besides Mike Tomlin for the Steelers, who will win?” McCoy enquired.
He felt that Saleh had been dealt a rough hand and that it would be unfair to evaluate him only on the basis of the team’s success from the previous campaign, given all of the injuries they sustained.
Hopefully, Rodgers stays healthy for the entire 2024 season, giving observers and supporters a chance to assess Saleh’s abilities as a head coach while seeing a noticeable development from the quarterback position.