After not spending much time in front of cameras between his Jeopardy!-hosting stint and the news of his desire to leave Green Bay surfacing, Aaron Rodgers ventured back into the public eye this week. The reigning MVP stopped in for an interview during Kenny Mayne’s final SportsCenter and surfaced in Instagram vacation photos with fiancée Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller.
In roundabout fashion, Rodgers affirmed his discontent with Packers management. But the Packers are not changing their tune. They are holding firm on their stance they will not trade their 13-year starting quarterback, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes.
While this saga has generated a few weeks’ worth of rumors, since Rodgers’ wish to be traded became known just before the draft, Packers power brokers have attempted to break through with him for months now. Those efforts have been unsuccessful. Usually a participant in Green Bay OTAs, Rodgers obviously is not in Wisconsin this week. Packers minicamp looms June 8; it would be surprising if Rodgers showed for that. Training camp will provide a better view of how entrenched the future Hall of Famer is here.
The case for the Packers hanging onto Rodgers is fairly simple. The 37-year-old superstar keeps them on the Super Bowl contender tier, and despite most modern first-round QBs entering Year 2 as starters, Jordan Love is viewed as a player perhaps not quite ready for such a jump.
The Packers have the threat of forcing Rodgers to sit out what could well be one of his final prime seasons. Skipping the season would cost Rodgers his $14.7MM 2021 base salary, a $6.8MM ’21 roster bonus, a portion of his previously paid signing bonus and a notable collection of training camp absence fines. Rodgers has not hinted this rift concerns finances, however, and has earned hundreds of millions from Packers contracts and endorsement deals as a pro. He has been known to hold a grudge or two as well.
Trading Rodgers would hurt the Packers financially, even after June 1. They would have a $38.4MM dead-money hit spread out through 2022. Dealing the quarterback next year would lessen the dead-cap hit. Though, the Packers would still be tagged with an eight-figure penalty. A 2022 trade — ahead of Rodgers’ age-39 season — may involve inferior trade proposals compared to the ones that would come Green Bay’s way this year. Offers including multiple first-round picks and established starters have been mentioned as the likely starting point, with the Broncos being the team most closely connected to a potential pursuit.
The prospect of an unhappy Rodgers returning to play this season would certainly make for an awkward environment at the Packers facility, but ahead of that pivotal June 1 date, that scenario still appears to be the team’s goal.
Hey if he wants to forfeit that much money because they didnt tell him they were drafting a QB in the 1st round… then hes weaker minded than everyone thought.
Or much stronger minded
Parx –
If he had a strong mind, he would have been smart enough to take a shower for a national TV interview that was going to be broadcast to millions of people. He knew this interview was going to happen for months, and that’s how he chose to represent himself?? I honestly wonder if Rodgers has the beginnings of CTE.
Then HE talks about character? The guy who wont honor his contract? The guy who refused to attend his own grandmothers funeral? The guy who was not on speaking terms with his entire family for years? The guy who consistently shows up his own teammates on the field? The guy who refuses to admit his own mistakes wants to talk about “character”? Talk about a hypocrite! Stronger minded, yeah there’s a joke. You’re either a Rodgers lover, or a fool.
I don’t know if many remember this now, but back around 2012-13, when Rodger’s buddy, Ryan Braun was accused of using performance enhancing drugs, Rodgers got all up in arms when fans believed it. He singled out a guy (can’t recall his name?), online, and bet the guy a year’s salary that Braun was innocent. Then when it came out that Braun was guilty, Rodgers not only welshed on the bet, he wouldn’t even admit he was wrong. There’s your “character” statement right there.
Exactly…the guy is just arrogant scum who happens to be able to throw a football real well. Having a physical talent does not make you a good human being. Being a good human being is what makes you a good human being. Rodgers is who he is.
“Throw in some BBC and you’ve got a deal” – Aaron Rodgers
You’re really a fan of British television.
Im surprised how much fans hate players who ask to be traded.
If he sits the whole year, fans will probably hate him even more.
Not that Rodgers cares.
Most fans see themselves as general-managers-in-waiting, especially in the era of fantasy football and Madden.
Sounds like Rodgers sees himself as deserving of being a general manager of the present. Extreme arrogance.
Is it arrogance when you want to leave your job, for feeling you don’t want to be there? Even if those reasons are short-sighted, once you check out of a job, being committed, it’s in both parties interest to part ways. He’s basically, already quit that company (to complete the analogy). My dad always told me you can’t go back to a job you quit. The commitment will never be there, again.
Both are correct statements. the thing I just can’t understand is how anyone could possibly take Gutekunst’s side in this scenario. I don’t have an argument with anyone saying that Rodgers is being a baby. I don’t dispute that (of course, the question arises about how exactly one should handle the position that he is in while feeling the same emotions that he does). Thing is, objectively, which desired course of action makes Green Bay better-Rodgers’, or Gutekunst’s?
if Rodgers gets what he wants, the Packers get better right now, no doubts involved. If Gutekunst gets what he wants, maybe they will later down the road if the picks work out. Aside from all that, one of those guys has put in the work for a longer period of time. No, QBs shouldn’t control the team. Yes, they should realize that the team’s needs outweigh their own. But QBs play for teams for ten plus years now if they’re good. After a while, they want results too. What happens when they see their teams make questionable moves when they know they have a short window to do something special? That’s what I don’t get from the critics’ point of view. What is Rodgers supposed to do? Roll over, let the Packers waste his career?
To be fair to Gutekunst, he’s been with the organization since 1998, so even longer than Rodgers, but one can certainly question his draft choices and roster moves of the last three years, and the general direction of the offensive cast around Rodgers, in particular.
But yes, many of Rodgers’ critics think workers in general should roll over and let the bosses make all of the decisions, and if they don’t like it, they should just quit or retire. “Shut up and work, wage slave!” And it doesn’t matter if the worker is a waiter making less than the minimum wage, or a QB making millions of dollars per game. “Shut up and work, wage slave!”
Gutekunst is tasked with making sure the team is set not on for the present but also the future. Rodgers before this season was being paid as though he was the best QB in the league, he wasn’t necessarily playing as such. If the staff feels as though they can get an eventual replacement, its their job to try to do such.
And if that decision to draft a replacement ends up being laughably, embarrassingly stupid, the GM should face the consequences. Back to back NFC championships, and he wasted draft capital to move up and draft a replacement for the league MVP. That’s the rub, in my opinion – if Rodgers continued to decline, he looks like a genius; but he didn’t, so the GM should be held accountable for the mistake.
“Rodgers before this season was being paid as though he was the best QB in the league, he wasn’t necessarily playing as such.”
Rodgers’ has ranked in the top five in annual QB cap hits only twice in the last ten years, while making three first-team All-Pro squads and eight Pro Bowls:
2020 – 10th
2019 – 2nd
2018 – 14th
2017 – 6th, no Pro Bowl
2016 – 10th
2015 – 4th
2014 – 6th
2013 – 11th, no Pro Bowl
2012 – 14th
2011 – 13th
You could make the argument that Rodgers was overpaid, by cap hit, in 2017 and 2019, and underpaid every other year since 2011 except 2013, when he was maybe paid just about right.
Meanwhile, the Packers’ defense has ranked above average, in the top 16, in points allowed only five times, and in the top 10 once in those 10 years.
If anything, Rodgers has been a bargain for the Packers over the last decade.
Yeah a huge bargain who repeatedly chokes in big games. Gee thanks
You really think that Aaron Rodgers has ever been less than a top five quarterback in the league in his career? He’s the thing that’s been holding the Packers back all this time?
cryptonerd-
Who the hell knows what Rodgers cares about…it’s certainly not his appearance or hygiene
I hate the packers. Not necessarily giving Rodgers a free pass because he’s been kind of a baby about the whole thing but he’s earned the right to bail if he wants to and he has legit gripes. I just think Gudekunst and LaFleur are egotistical morons. The draft picks, particularly trading up in the first round for Jordan Love, the kicking a FG against the Bucs instead of going for the TD, the handling of this situation…they just suck.
So even though Rodgers signed his current contract with Gudekunst as GM fully knowing he is locked in until at least 2022, he should be allowed to bail even if the Packers are forced to eat almost $40MM? If he wasn’t happy with the way the Packers front office has run things over the course of his career then why not become a free agent when he had opportunities to? Why continue signing extensions and locking himself to this franchise? We all know plenty of teams would’ve overpaid to obtain him when he was younger.
Gudekunst was a rookie GM who had run only one draft a few months before Rodgers signed his extension in 2018, so how was Rodgers to know that he wouldn’t be happy with the way Gutekunst ran things over the next couple of years? And that was only his third extension with the team, the previous ones being signed while he was still on his rookie contract and in the middle of an eight-year playoff run. The problem here doesn’t seem to be Rodgers vs. Green Bay management in general, but Rodgers vs. Gutekunst (and maybe LaFleur).
As soon as Rogers announces his retirement, he will be the beneficiary of a massive bidding war among the networks that televise NFL football and will likely land the coveted Jeopardy gig. He will silently thank the Packers for giving him an exit strategy before his body is totally worn down.
He was boring on Jeopardy. He did an adequate job and has some start power, but there’s no way the producers at Jeopardy would hire him. A network job commentating is more likely, but he would need some work. He doesn’t compare to Tony Romo in that department. Rodgers is too laid back right now.
Tell me who has been better, so far, as the Jeopardy Host. So far I’ve watched every show up to Anderson Cooper’s fourth show and Rogers has done the best job. I never liked Rogers or the Green Bay Packers. I’m a die hard Chicago Bears fan and our team has enough problems of its own.
Jeaprdy! doesn’t want him full time. He is exciting as a wooden chair. They need someone with more energy to host.
ctyank7 –
He will not get the full time job on jeopardy now that a large portion of the country has negative feelings about him and see him as a complete greaseball after the way he “dressed himself up” for a nationally broadcast interview. Jeopardy can do a whole lot better than that.
Except it’s really only a few old people online who view him that way. Most of America is on the side if the superstar winning QB, not an incompetent GM who is actively fighting to make his team worse.
I can’t even begin to understand the grey matter of someone who thinks that block of wood is getting that job.
That’s taking fanboying the Nth.
Trading him makes no sense. The Packers instantly becomes a non factor if Rodgers is gone.
he will never play for packers unless gutenmoron is fired.
That’s more likely than trading him, especially this year.
That’s what I’m hoping for!
But they have their first round QB, Jordan Love!
No way packers trade him….his choices are to sit out 2021 or play….that’s it. That’s your choices.
Rodgers needs to get over himself….just play pissed off again like you did in 2020.
“…known to hold a grudge or two” says it all.
Denver and Washington have $19.8 and $17.2 million in cap space, respectively, so they may be able to put together a trade package that included a bridge QB (Bridgewater or Fitzpatrick), the necessary future draft picks, another player or two, and maybe a chunk of money to make a trade a real possibility, if Packers management will open their minds to a deal. And I think the Pack could still compete for the division with Teddy or Ryan under center, especially if they brought a decent WR2 with them.
Not going anywhere. Period.
I don’t understand why Rodgers is wasting his time with football, what happened to his plan to become the GM of the Milwaukee Bucks?
If not for one other guy, Rodgers would be a previously unseen combo of ego and insecurity.
Still, the best move for GB is to trade him.
make jordan love play tight end. or trade for julio jones. problem solved.
I think the established players aspect to a trade is a desperate Packers fan playing GM. I can understand draft picks obviously. However a 38 year old QB who will guarantee nothing moving forward as to commitment is too big a risk to give up Jeudy and Chubb, whilst mortgaging future draft capital.
Pretty simple to me. I would get a new GM. Packers are so close with Rogers, how can they just start over and become a losing franchise? Bengals, Jets, Lions ring a bell? Get a net GM! Right or wrong, Rogers level talent is not easy to find.
Since 2011 season the packers defense is what has mostly let them down (granted Rodgers hasn’t done well in playoff games specifically the nfc championship game). That to me would explain why defensive players are what the packers are trying to draft and choosing to take shots at offensive players later in the draft. I mean it’s been what 13 years Rodgers has been the starting quarterback for the packers and he’s won as many nfc championship games as Rex Grossman.
Maybe it’s time to rest for the packers. They have clearly tried the same thing over and over again and have had the same results. Also I’d like to see what both Rodgers and the pack can do without each other. Rodgers has had six games against the Vikings, bears, and lions every year. After those games all they need is 2-4 wins and they are in the playoffs. They are usually not challenged by a good team until late in the playoffs.
Let’s see if the team first mentality that the packers front office is trying to make can work. Let’s also see what Rodgers can do against better divisional opponents such as the afc west or afc north 6 times a year.