SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Heading into Monday's Jets-49ers season opener, most of the attention is understandably focused on the return of Aaron Rodgers, who missed all but four games last season.
But he won't be the only Jets starter returning after missing a season.
Chuck Clark missed the entire 2023 season with a torn ACL but will start at safety.
“I'm very excited,” Clark said last week. “At the end of the day, it's football for me, the sport I've always played. I'm going to keep a level head. Of course I'm excited, but I'm not going to let anything get me out of shape or out of position. I'm going to be totally focused.”
Clark was traded to the Jets in March 2023 from the Ravens.
The Jets were excited about what Clark could bring to their defense, but he tore his ACL in the final overtime session of the spring and will miss the entire year.
For the first time in his life, Clark was a spectator.
Clark remained in New Jersey and attended the conference but did not play in the games.
“It was different,” Clark said. “It was a new experience for me. It was a new building at the time. I had to try to overcome that and then battle injuries. It was a different experience to say the least.”
Last week, Clark was doing pre-game preparations for the first time in more than a year.
He said he knows he'll have time before the game to reflect on his road to recovery.
“I think this week is just getting back into game operations. Now, this week it's early Friday, travel day, everything that we've missed,” Clark said. “It feels great to get it all back in, the pre-game flyovers, the whole thing. I can't wait for it all.”
Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett spoke last week about how involved Aaron Rodgers is in the game-planning process.
“It's a very detailed plan. We plan together all the time as coaches and we lay it out to him on a weekly basis, or like we do with any quarterback, and we make everything clear with him,” Hackett said. “He watches a lot of film and has a lot of ideas, just like we do, so we want to make sure he's comfortable with everything we're trying to implement there. So as we go through the plan, we communicate it to him, we talk about it a lot, make sure we have everything we need and we go from there. So it's been pretty smooth. He just has another set of eyes because of his experience.”
