Aaron Rodgers gets the last word against Jets, and it's 'win'

The Jets showed Aaron Rodgers  the door in February.

On Sunday at MetLife Stadium, the 41-year-old quarterback — who felt slighted by the nature in which his former team parted ways with him — had the last laugh.

In his Steelers debut, Rodgers was 22-for-30 for 244 yards, four touchdowns and no turnovers in a  34-32 comeback win  over the Jets. He led the go-ahead drive that ended with Chris Boswell’s 60-yard field goal with 1:03 remaining.

The win had some extra meaning for Rodgers, though he did not necessarily rub it in the Jets’ faces.

“I love beating everybody,” he said. “So it doesn’t matter who it is. I really only played 18 games here. So I was actually talking to Breece [Hall] about that pregame.

“He said, ‘How does it feel?’ I said, ‘Honestly, I was here for two years, but it doesn’t come close to how it’s going to feel playing Green Bay [on Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh], because that was 18 years of my career.’

“So it was nice to win, especially hearing some of the catcalls out there and the boobirds. I’m not sensitive about that. I expected that. I kind of liked that. But there were probably people in the organization [who] didn’t think I could play anymore, so it was nice to remind those people that I still can.”

In    an appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show” in April,  Rodgers said his meeting with new Jets coach Aaron Glenn and general manager Darren Mougey lacked “an ample amount of respect.” He flew from California to New Jersey on his own dime for a conversation that he felt could have transpired over the phone.

When asked about it Sunday, Rodgers acknowledged that Glenn told him he was not right for the Jets moving forward. But he did not take any further digs at him.

“I was happy to beat everybody associated with the Jets,” he said.

Sure, Rodgers played only 18 games with the Jets — the full 17 in 2024 and the 2023 season opener in which he tore his Achilles tendon four snaps into his first drive. But this was the same player who, upon his introduction to the Jets in April 2023, noted that the team’s lone Lombardi Trophy was “looking a little lonely.”

In his lone full season with the Jets, Rodgers — despite having the third-most passing yards (3,897) and touchdown passes (28) in a single season in Jets history — led the team to a 5-12 record.

If it was only 18 games, was the external chatter in the lead-up to Sunday overblown?

“It wasn’t overblown,” Rodgers said. “The excitement that we had back in 9/11 ’23, running on the field. I mean, the energy definitely felt different Week 1 today. I think anybody who was there can feel that there was a major difference. And then to have the season taken away like that and to battle back and have a rough season last year.

“Like I said this last week, I gave as much as I could to the team, and it didn’t work out.”

Rodgers posted a 136.7 quarterback rating Sunday and was sacked four times. He was not exactly clinical down the stretch.

He had a first go-ahead opportunity with a 32-31 deficit with 6:53 left, and the Steelers went three-and-out. He threw two passes — a completion to Kenneth Gainwell that lost 5 yards and an incompletion that could have been picked off by Brandon Stephens — and was sacked on third down.

On the game-winning drive, he moved Pittsburgh across midfield with an 11-yard pass to DK Metcalf, a throw that was broken up by Sauce Gardner before pinballing off Jonnu Smith’s arms and into Metcalf’s lap. Stephens could have been called for pass interference on Rodgers’ third-and-11 incompletion intended for Calvin Austin III; he already had been called for interference on the second play of the drive, a 19-yard penalty that moved Pittsburgh up from its 29-yard line.

Ultimately, Boswell’s right foot bailed him out.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin downplayed the hype surrounding Rodgers’ return.

“He doesn’t care,” Tomlin said. “He’s been doing this too long.”

Still, Rodgers got to reconvene with old friends. He enjoyed a pregame catch with Karan Patel, a former member of the Jets’ equipment staff, and noted meetups with Hall, Tyrod Taylor, Quinnen Williams, Quincy Williams and Jamien Sherwood, among others.

But the past is the past.

“I didn’t have any hard feelings about it not working out,” Rodgers said. “Now I didn’t maybe appreciate the way that it went down in the end, but that’s in the past and we’re 1-0.”

By Ben Dickson

benjamin.dickson@newsday.com@bendickson__

Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.