About

Aaron Rodgers' Achilles Tendon Tear Jokes refers to gags about New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers suffering a tear to his Achilles tendon muscle four plays into his New York Jets career, leading him to be ruled out for the remainder of the 2023-2024 season. The unfortunate injury led to a series of jokes and memes about a 2021 controversy in which Rodgers misled the public into thinking he'd been vaccinated against COVID-19, only to get COVID later that year and reveal he had been using "homeopathic treatments" to "boost his immunity" on the advice of Joe Rogan.

Origin

On September 11th, 2023, the New York Jets faced the Buffalo Bills in their opening game of the 2023-2024 season. The Jets acquired quarterback Aaron Rodgers in the offseason, greatly boosting the team's hopes for a playoff and potential Super Bowl run.

However, four plays into the Jets opening drive of the season, Rodgers was sacked and tore his Achilles tendon on the play (seen below).^[1] The injury ruled him out for the rest of the season (the Jets went on to win the game 22-16 in overtime).

Jokes about the injury started cropping up immediately on Twitter, often connecting Rodgers' injury to his skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccine and 9/11. ^[2] For example, right after the injury occurred, Twitter user @lib_crusher^[3] joked, "vaxxed?," echoing a common refrain of anti-vaxxers who voice suspicion that chest injuries in athletes are caused by the coronavirus vaccine. The tweet gained over 2,900 retweets and 27,000 likes in one day (shown below).

Spread

For much of the rest of the night, jokes about Rodgers' anti-vax stance spread on social media. For example, on September 11th, 2023, user @WaltHickey^[4] tweeted an Ivermectin joke about the injury, gaining over 860 retweets and 8,800 likes in one day (shown below, left). User @TriggeredBurke^[5] made a similar joke, referencing the myth of Achilles' Heel, gaining over 80 retweets and 420 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Others made jokes about Rodgers' being a suspected 9/11 truther. For example, Twitter user @MrsKhandiCoated^[6] joked about the irony of the injury happening on 9/11, gaining over 1,100 retweets and 5,600 likes in one day (shown below, left). User @Tae4MVP^[7] joked about the NFL's "script writers," gaining over 430 retweets and 5,800 likes (shown below, right).

Various Examples

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External References