One NFL head coach thought the warning signs were there with New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers before he suffered his season-ending Achilles injury in Week 1 last year.

“You go back and watch those first four plays before he got hurt, he did not look good,” the coach said to The Athletic’s Mike Sando. “He looks old. If they can’t protect him and they can’t run the football, it’ll be just what you saw late stages in Green Bay. He became ineffective. I’m looking at what he is, not who he is.”

Rodgers slipped out of Tier 1 in Sando’s rankings and into Tier 2, the latter of which is reserved for QBs who “can carry his team sometimes but not as consistently.” The head coach Sando interviewed put him even lower and was one of seven voters including him in Tier 3.

Rodgers’ injury came on New York’s fourth offensive snap. Basing any judgments on that very small sample would be unfair.

However, it would also be accurate to say the torn Achilles reaffirmed some existing concerns as much as it raised new ones.

In 2022, Rodgers had his lowest passer rating (91.1) and QBR (41.3) ever over a full season. If you wanted to say he was a quarterback in the early stages of a decline, you had some evidence.

As part of his QB tiers experiment in 2023, Sando cited a source who questioned whether the four-time would age less gracefully than Tom Brady because he has leaned more on his mobility to improvise and buy time in the pocket. Another executive cited the fact the Jets play on a turf field, a departure from Lambeau Field that would lead to “a lot of pounding on a surface that is tough on an old guy’s legs.”

The MetLife Stadium playing surface became an even bigger part of the story in the wake of Rodgers’ injury.

Between signing wide receiver Mike Williams and adding Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses and Olu Fashanu to bolster the offensive line, Rodgers should have a stronger supporting cast now than he did to open 2023.

But that may not matter much if the 40-year-old begins to show his age much more than he had in the past.