By Michael Silver, Sports ColumnistSep 2, 2024

New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers warms up before playing against the Buffalo Bills the 2023 season opener, an appearance that ended after four snaps on Sept. 11 in East Rutherford, N.J.

Aaron Rodgers is eager to see how far he and the Jets can go after his 2023 season ended during the team’s first offensive series of the season.

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — He stared down at the glimmering bay, convinced he’d be sticking around for years to come. Aaron Rodgers had just completed a banger of a Pro Day workout at Cal in March 2005, and now he was enjoying a celebratory lunch at the nearby Claremont Hotel with San Francisco 49ers head coach Mike Nolan, offensive coordinator Mike McCarthy and quarterbacks coach Jim Hostler.

In his mind, Rodgers wasn’t merely celebrating a great throwing session. The 49ers had the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming draft, and the Golden Bears star felt certain he’d be their choice.

Nearly two decades later, as the future first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback prepares to face the 49ers in Monday’s season opener at Levi’s Stadium, in what could be the last game he ever plays in Northern California, Rodgers remembers the moment vividly.

“I (completed) 90 of 91,” he recalled, smiling, during a recent interview in a maintenance area at New York Jets headquarters. “We scripted it; (Cal coach) Jeff (Tedford) put the whole thing together. It was a great workout, and then we went to lunch. I thought it was a good lunch. And I’m still kinda like riding high, like, ‘There ain’t no way that other workout’s gonna be like this.’

“The rest is history.”

Rodgers, after the sport’s most visibly uncomfortable draft-day free fall ever, went 24th to the Green Bay Packers, waited three years behind the legendary Brett Favre and commenced a run of football brilliance that included four regular-season MVP awards and a Super Bowl MVP trophy.

Now in his second season with the Jets, for whom he took only four snaps in 2023 before suffering the worst injury of his career, the 40-year-old Rodgers is trying to make more history. Fittingly, he’ll be back in the Bay to begin the 2024 regular season — on “Monday Night Football,” the same platform upon which he tore his Achilles on the other side of the country a year ago.

There’s a lot on the line for Rodgers, who hopes to join Peyton Manning and Tom Brady as the only quarterbacks to start and win Super Bowls for two different franchises. Though he has long been based in the L.A. area during his offseasons, the Chico native still has great affection for the northern part of the state.

His sentimental pull toward the region has taunted him at times. Three years ago, for a brief stretch, Rodgers could legitimately ponder the possibility of finishing his career in a 49ers uniform.

Following the Packers’ shocking loss to Brady and the Buccaneers at Lambeau Field in the NFC Championship Game in January 2021, Rodgers, fresh off his third MVP season, became estranged from his longtime employers. He requested a trade during the spring, with the 49ers as one of his preferred targets.

Instead, with coach Kyle Shanahan looking to move on from starting quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, the Niners sent three first-round picks to Miami to acquire the third overall selection in the 2021 draft, ultimately choosing Trey Lance as Garoppolo’s heir apparent.

Even in the hours leading up to Lance’s selection, however, there was national buzz that Rodgers might be dealt to the 49ers. As documented in my upcoming book, “The Why Is Everything,” the Niners’ interest in Rodgers fractured the relationship between Shanahan and one of his friends and former assistants, Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur, though it has since been repaired.

While that drama played out, Rodgers could at least daydream about a full-circle homecoming.

“I thought there was a slim, slim possibility,” he said. “I just didn’t really ever think the Packers would trade me within the conference. There seemed to be some kismet (as) in ’05, with me being from Northern California, and San Fran. And as much as it seemed like not the front end of my career, but now the twilight of my career, going back home to my childhood team would have been some fated circumstance, it never really felt like it was gonna be a reality.”

The Packers, it turned out, weren’t about to trade him to anyone. They held onto Rodgers, temporarily repaired the relationship (with the help of a massive contract extension) and kept him for two more seasons — one that saw him earn his fourth MVP, the other a choppy campaign that ended a game short of a playoff berth.

By the time Green Bay was finally willing to deal him in spring 2023, Shanahan and the Niners had moved forward with Brock Purdy.

Though it presumably will never happen, Rodgers does wonder how a collaboration with Shanahan would have played out. Stylistically, it could have been challenging. Rodgers knows this from experience — specifically, from the transition he made in 2019, when LaFleur was hired in Green Bay.

After spending most of his career in an offense conceived by McCarthy (who left the Niners after that ’05 season to become the Packers’ coach), one that gave him great latitude at the line of scrimmage, Rodgers was asked to adapt to a scheme that restricted those options. The “Audible Thing,” as LaFleur dubbed it to me shortly after taking the job, took a full season to navigate.

Shanahan, LaFleur’s mentor, is arguably even more exacting when it comes to his expectations for the quarterback’s reads, decisions and processes. Could these two headstrong, highly accomplished competitors have vibed and thrived as coach/play-caller and QB?

“I mean, I’ve thought about that from time to time, and I’ve had conversations with people who think that’s an interesting idea,” Rodgers said, smiling. “I don’t know; it’s one of those ‘what if?’ things. He is a phenomenal play-caller. I think he’s a fantastic coach. I think anything can work if two people can find a common ground. The common ground for great relationships is respect.

“So, even though Kyle seems to be — I don’t know what the right word is, ’cause I’m kind of speaking out of turn and don’t know him that well — but he seems to be very headstrong, which I think is a phenomenal attribute. It’s almost like, had that imaginary world happened, with his genius, what would you actually need to change? (I feel like) it would work because he’s a genius and I have a lot of years of experience.”

It’s likely a moot discussion. Instead, Rodgers is trying to help an embattled coach — Robert Saleh, Shanahan’s defensive coordinator in S.F. from 2017-20 — pull a flagging franchise out of its extended malaise. The Jets haven’t made the playoffs since the 2010 season, the longest current postseason drought among teams in the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB.

With Rodgers, there is hope, largely because of his long history of thriving amid adverse and daunting circumstances. He was hardened by early experiences that included an unlikely college path: Barely recruited out of Chico’s Pleasant Valley High, he spent a year at nearby Butte Community College, earning a scholarship to Cal only after Tedford showed up in Oroville to watch him throw to another prospect, future Bears tight end Garrett Cross.

In his junior year at Cal, despite the team being ranked third in the country, the Bears were denied a Rose Bowl berth because of shady and improbable nuances of the then-BCS-governed selection procedure.

A few months later, in the wake of that command performance at Pro Day, Rodgers took a visit to 49ers headquarters and began to feel less secure about his coronation as the No. 1 overall pick.

“When I went to the Niners’ facility, I got time with Mike Nolan and Mike McCarthy separately,” Rodgers recalled. “With Mike (McCarthy) it was great, ’cause Mike knew the West Coast offense, so I was like totally, ‘Ah, man, Bill Walsh, Paul Hackett. …’ We were talking about Joe Montana ’cause he was with him, so it was such a fun meeting.

“And I kinda straight-up asked him, ‘What do you think?’ And my recollection is, ‘I think we’re gonna take you’ were his words. It’s been 20 years; whether or not that’s what was said, who knows? Maybe I wanted it to seem like that. But when I met with Mike Nolan, I didn’t feel like there was the same type of connection I had with Mike McCarthy. So I wasn’t super confident.”

He has spent 19 years making the franchise regret the decision, which is obvious: While Smith enjoyed a fine career, Rodgers will go down as one of the best quarterbacks ever to spin it.

In head-to-head battles, however, the Niners have more than held their own. Though Rodgers’ teams have won six of nine regular-season clashes against S.F. — including the 2021 thriller at Levi’s that ended with Mason Crosby’s walk-off, 51-yard field goal — he’s 0-4 against the 49ers in the postseason. Those setbacks include a beatdown in the 2019 NFC Championship Game at Levi’s and the 2021 divisional playoff upset at Lambeau Field sealed by Robbie Gould’s 45-yard field goal on the final play.

If those defeats were crushing, Rodgers’ first game with the Jets, on Sept. 11 of last year, was something beyond that. With a “Monday Night Football” audience and a raucous MetLife Stadium crowd revved up for his debut, he charged out of the tunnel carrying an American flag to honor the anniversary of the worst-ever attack on U.S. soil, creating an indelible image.

Then, on the Jets’ first offensive series, came a play he’ll never forget: Rodgers took a shotgun snap and was quickly engulfed by Bills edge rusher Leonard Floyd, who sacked him as he spun. Slumped to the turf, the quarterback knew instantly that his Achilles was torn.

Inside, Rodgers was ripped up, his dreams delayed at least a year.

There were rumors that Aaron Rodgers, watching the Jets’ game against the Atlanta Falcons on Dec. 3, 2023, would return late last season after recovering from his torn Achilles tendon, but he remained sidelined.

“It was devastating,” he said. “It was heartbreaking. I don’t know what would have been worse — like, maybe playing a bunch of games, having some success, and then having something happen where you could see that we (would have made) a run? Or kind of getting hurt before you even knew what the hell you were gonna be?

“We’re a better football team on paper than we were last year, so that’s exciting.”

As he prepares for a do-over, Rodgers, who sat out the preseason but looked strikingly back to his old self in training camp, can’t help but wonder whether the football gods are messing with him: He’ll once again make his debut on “Monday Night Football,” this time in the region where he once starred, against a 49ers team that signed Floyd in free agency to rush the passer opposite Nick Bosa.

“I saw that,” Rodgers said, laughing and recalling his eventful history with Floyd, which included a sick pump-fake that got the pass rusher, then with the Rams, to leave his feet as the quarterback raced past him to the end zone in the Packers’ 2020 divisional-round playoff victory over L.A. at Lambeau.

“I like Leonard,” Rodgers said. “I have a lot of respect for him. Obviously, he’s not trying to hurt me (on the play that led to his Achilles tear). But yeah, “Monday Night Football,” back home…”

Yes, Rodgers still calls NorCal home. And for those who may be wondering, he still has a tangible attachment to Berkeley: After conspicuously distancing himself from his alma mater when Tedford was fired in 2012, Rodgers has been a gung-ho supporter since Justin Wilcox, with whom he is close, was hired as Cal’s coach a little more than four years later.

When Rodgers runs through that tunnel Monday night, he’ll be carrying so many memories from his time in the Bay Area — some happy, some less so. Unlike last year, he won’t be displaying the Stars and Stripes.

“I don’t think there’ll be a flag,” he said.

A Cal flag, perhaps?

“That would be sweet,” Rodgers said. “That might get some fans on my side.”

Good luck with that.

If nothing else, even as they boo, perhaps Niners fans can quietly appreciate the opposing quarterback’s resilience — and ponder what might have been.

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Michael Silver wrote: