Fans of the New York Jets got bad news Monday night as they watched their top offseason acquisition, quarterback Aaron Rodgers, get hurt and miss the rest of the game after playing four offensive snaps.
The news got worse Tuesday morning as it was revealed that Rodgers suffered a tear of his left Achilles tendon during Monday’s game and will miss the entire 2023 NFL season.
What Happened: The New York Jets traded for four-time NFL MVP Rodgers in the offseason, which created high expectations heading into the 2023 season.
As Benzinga earlier reported, the Jets began the 2023 NFL season favored to win Super Bowl LVIII, with strong odds to reach the NFL Playoffs and compete in the tough AFC East division.
The betting world reacted to news of Rodgers' injury and lines continue to shift down with expectations significantly lowered.
Despite losing Rodgers and facing off against one of the top teams in the NFL, the Jets pulled away with a 22-16 win in overtime.
The Jets saw their Super Bowl odds fall from +1600 before the NFL season started to +6000 after Rodgers' injury on the DraftKings Inc DKNG sportsbook. Odds for the Jets to make the NFL Playoffs went from -130 to +215 with the team now expected to extend the longest active postseason drought among North American sports teams.
Along with changing odds for future bets on the Jets, sportsbooks also had to make the difficult decision of whether they would refund bets made by anyone on the Jets game and player props on Aaron Rodgers. Player props require a player to play, but injuries often lead to bets being lost without refunds.
DraftKings and BetMGM, a joint venture from MGM Resorts International MGM and Entain, were among the sportsbooks that refunded player props that involved Rodgers stats. In some cases, the refunds were paid out with bonus bets for future use.
PointsBet and FanDuel, which is owned by Flutter Entertainment PDYPY, said they would not refund or issue credits for Rodgers bets, according to the Action Network’s Darren Rovell.
Beyond the football buzz around sports betting for the Jets and the Rodgers injury, here are some other key developments from Monday and Tuesday.
Related Link: Exclusive: Gary Vee Predicts NY Jets Playoff Return In 2023: 'I Know My Team'
Media Fallout: The Monday Night Football matchup aired on ESPN and ABC and streamed on ESPN+, all units of The Walt Disney Company DIS.
Monday’s win against the Bills was one of six primetime television games for the Jets scheduled for the 2023 NFL season. Primetime games are selected before the season begins and often face marquee matchups. With Rodgers out, broadcasters set to televise the games might experience a dip in viewership for matchups they anticipated would be prime attractions.
The remaining five primetime Jets games are:
Week 4: Jets vs. Chiefs, Sunday Night Football on NBC, a unit of Comcast Corporation CMCSA
Week 9: Jets vs. Chargers, Monday Night Football on ESPN
Week 10: Jets vs. Raiders, Sunday Night Football on NBC
Week 12: Jets vs. Dolphins, Black Friday game on Amazon.com Inc AMZN owned Prime Video
Week 17: Jets vs. Browns, Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video
Rodgers Four Snaps Measured Another Way: Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci was fired after 10 days in the role. Since leaving behind the post, Scaramucci has been able to laugh at the fact that his short term is sometimes used as a unit of measurement of time, representing around 10 days.
When United Kingdom Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her resignation in 2022 after 44 days in office, Scaramucci was quick to point out that Truss lasted 4.1 Scaramuccis.
After Rodgers' injury, Scaramucci was quick to tweet out that the new Jets quarterback lasted “1/1584th of a Scaramucci.”
Twitter User Predicts Injury: Anyone who follows sports on Twitter knows that people often make predictions on who will make the playoffs or win a championship. Sometimes those predictions are for the current season and other times they are for years in the future, hoping to be able to go back and say that you were right.
One Twitter user made a bold prediction two hours before kickoff Monday night.
“Aaron Rodgers is going to tear his Achilles on a rain drenched MetLife turf in 2.5 hours,” Twitter user @daddyzaslav tweeted.
A previous tweet from Zaslav also questioned the potential field conditions of MetLife, where the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants played in heavy rain during the Sunday Night Football game.
“40 year old QB on rain drenched turf against the best team in football, what could go wrong, am I right.”
The tweet predicting Rodgers' injury had over 10 million views on Twitter before the account of the user was suspended. The suspension is rumored to have happened due to questionable replies to Twitter users.
Fantasy Football Margin: During the NFL season, fantasy football matchups can be won or lost by the slimmest of margins. A fantasy football player entered the Monday Night Football matchup losing 93.5 to 93.56, but had a 99% chance of winning. The high likelihood of winning came with the contestant still having Rodgers to play and his opponent being out of more players. Rodgers needed to get 0.06 points for the user to win their matchup, but ended the contest with 0 points.
Jets Lose, You Win: A bar in Wisconsin offered a promotion for the 2023 NFL season hoping to win over fans who are mad that Rodgers is no longer a Green Bay Packer. The “Jets Lose, You Win” promotion offers free drinks to patrons during Jets games if the team ends up losing the contest.
When Rodgers got hurt during the Monday Night Football game, bargoers thought the Bills would win the game easily and began ordering tons of drinks that were expected to be free.
“The people here roared when Rodgers got sacked..and cheered again when they realized he was hurt,” a local CBS reporter tweeted.
The local television station was there when the Jets won in overtime to see the looks on people’s faces who realized they had to pay. Before the game started, the bar required participants in the event to put down their credit cards to ensure tabs would be paid, according to Rovell.
Bartender Marcela Doughtery told Rovell that the bar was packed to capacity and a decision would now be made on whether they will keep doing the promotion with Rodgers out the rest of the season.
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