Latest on Aaron Rodgers’ Potential Return

Last month the entire football world was flipped on its head when Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone versus the Vikings and was presumably out for a long period of time if not the entire season. There’s been rumors about the 33 year-old’s potential return since he was placed on the disabled list just about two weeks ago. Now the quarterback is addressing his potential return for the first time in a session with the media earlier today.

Rodgers spoke to a group of reporters after the team’s Friday practice, including Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com, who outlined Rodgers’ mindset for the rest of the season. Demovsky passed along that the former MVP is first and foremost focused on getting right physically.

“First of all, I want to be healthy,” Rodgers said. “That’s the most important thing. But if we’re healthy in eight weeks and it would make sense to come back, then I’m going to come back.”

Based on the quote, it would seem that the Rodgers isn’t putting it out of the question that he could return right before the start of the playoffs. According to league rules, the earliest Rodgers can return would be in Week 15 against Carolina. While the being on injured reserve is certainly not what one of the league’s best signal callers wanted, he looks to be thinking about the Packers decision to place him on the IR as a positive.

“I think the best thing that happened probably in this is just to put me on IR, because now you know it’s going to be at least eight weeks,” Rodgers said. “Where the last time, the holdup was the bone wasn’t healed. That was the main holdup. You could see me throwing at practice, you could see me [feeling] positive about it and feeling good, but then you’d go to the scan and it’s not healed yet. So it did take the duration.”

While Rodgers is focusing on moving forward he also pointed out that he didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes all too high regarding his recovery, given the severity of the injury.

“I would just temper expectations because, as much as I would love to get back out there this year, if it’s not healed, then there’s no conversation,” Rodgers said. “If it is healed, then there’s a conversation and we’ll go from there.”

Of course, Rodgers’ return would be a moot point if current starter Brett Hundley can’t keep the team above water until Rodgers is healed and ready to return to the field. As it stands, Green Bay is 4-3 and 1.5 games behind the NFC North division leading Vikings.