Aaron Rodgers Apparently Helped Zach Wilson Win a (Fake) Million Dollars

Aaron Rodgers might not be on the field for the New York Jets yet, but the team seems to feel his presence in the quarterback room with back-up quarterback Zach Wilson.

After Rodgers tore his Achilles on the Jets' first drive of the season earlier this year, Jets Head Coach Robert Saleh mocked reporters who were writing the team off.

"I don't know why people are trying to put an obituary under our team name," Saleh told reporters on a Zoom call.

Frankly, there's a pretty easy answer: Because they lost their 39-year-old starting quarterback to one of the more daunting sports injuries. For most teams, that would be a near-impossible obstacle to overcome.

But the Jets are an unlikely feel-good story this year. Behind the 24-year-old Wilson, they have rallied and become a playoff contender who will either be one game out of the hunt at .500 after Monday's contest against the Los Angeles Chargers (if they lose) or tied with the Cincinnati Bengals at 5-3 (if they win).

How have they done it? A big piece of the puzzle may be the team's quarterback room, which passing game coordinator Todd Downing told The Athletic is a "brotherhood."

According to The Athletic, Downing likes to keep his quarterback meetings fun. When he quizzes players about Jets plays, he will occasionally do it in the form of a game show like Jeopardy or Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Every once in a while, Downing sprinkles in non-football trivia, and at one point, Wilson got to the million-dollar round. Facing a question about The Shawshank Redemption that he couldn't answer, Wilson used his "Phone A Friend" lifeline to call Rodgers, who claimed he was watching the movie as Wilson called him.

Rodgers has acted as a de facto assistant coach this season, but the team hopes he can still return to play at some point. That kind of turnaround would be nearly unprecedented, but Rodgers says he has benefitted from a cutting-edge surgery that he believes could change the way Achilles tears are treated in the future.

It remains to be seen whether Rodgers can actually pull this off. He has said repeatedly that he has a lot of benchmarks to meet before he can get back on the field, which range from simple jogging to more advanced endeavors like evading pursuit when defenders break through the offensive line.

But Rodgers is also a big believer in manifesting. As he put it on The Pat McAfee Show last month, he trusts "the power of intention" deeply.

"I believe in the power of your mind and will," he said. "Willpower. Basically, this entire time I've said, 'This is what I'd like to do rehab-wise.' I've got some incredible people to work with."

Rodgers, it seems, also believes in Wilson.

"Those two (Wilson and Rodgers) have a cool big brother, little brother relationship going on, and it's been fun to watch," Downing told The Athletic.