It appears an unprecedented agreement is on the horizon. Just a couple of hours ago we heard that Aaron Rodgers was telling those close to him that he planned to play for the Packers in 2021, and now we know why.
The two sides are “close to an agreement” that would ensure Rodgers plays this season for the team, but would “help set up” his “departure from Green Bay after this season,” sources told Adam Schefter of ESPN.com (Twitter link). The Packers have offered “concessions” to Rodgers to get him to agree to play, but the new agreement will not include any additional money, Schefter tweets.
In return, Rodgers will “abandon plans he had to skip training camp and instead return for it.” The 2023 year, the last one on Rodgers’ current contract, would void as a result of this agreement, Schefter tweets. The Packers would then “agree to review” Rodgers’ “situation at the end of this season” (Twitter link).
Schefter additionally reported that Rodgers’ contract will be adjusted to keep him with the same income but increase Green Bay’s cap space, and that “mechanisms will be put in place to address Rodgers’ issues with the team.” It sounds like this is setting up an incredible ‘Last Dance’-esque situation, where Rodgers is playing for the Packers but everybody acknowledges his days are numbered.
Under this agreement, Rodgers would become a free agent after the 2022 season with the year getting voided. However, Schefter writes in a full piece for ESPN.com that Green Bay’s agreement to “review” the situation next offseason “implies that the team will trade Rodgers if he still feels the way he has about the Packers’ culture and decision-making.” Schefter later confirmed in a tweet that the truce will in fact give Rodgers the “freedom to decide where he wants to play in 2022.”
As such, it sounds like Rodgers will be allowed to leave after this season if he still wants to. It’s bizarre and unusual all around, but perhaps also the only fitting conclusion to what has been a wild ride all offseason. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we hear more.
Very interested to hear Rodgers finally speak on this. Most effed up Packer offseason since 2008. Thankfully we here in Wisco had the Bucks to watch win a chip and the first place Brewers.
Pulled hammy season. Aaron gets to laugh at Love & management!
Personally, I think it’s petty but why not TO your boss for fun?
The Packers got themselves a year to collude with other teams around the league so it remains to be seen how much laughing Aaron will be doing.
Collude with other teams to do what exactly? Not trade for him or give him a contract? Denver, Houston, Carolina, Washington, Vegas, New Orleans would kill to have Rodgers play for them next year. Green Bay may have won the battle to get Rodgers to play this year, but the war is far from over.
Your certainly correct that the drama is far from over. I’m pretty certain though that every owner in the league is very concerned that a star player can cause this much disruption to management of the team. We know that in the future Mahomes and some other franchise players are going to have as much influence as Rodgers if some action isn’t taken.
Rodgers has been promoting both the league & GB since they loss too TB.
Shad Kahn has 1 winning season in 8-9 years. Dan Synder about 3 in 20 years. KC went 50 years w/o a title. Same for the Jets. Point being the owners will always win.
Maintaining control over players has always been more important to owners than wins. With the escalating salaries of franchise players it’s getting harder for owners to control players like Rodgers who are making demands beyond just money. I would expect the owners to get together and brainstorm on how to avoid these disruptive situations in the future. There are a lot of actions they could consider from placing a cap within the salary cap to altering the game model through rule changes to de-emphasize the importance of the QB position. The one thing you can count on is that owners will never yield their control over players without a fight.
Do you think the owner’s earnings aren’t escalating? Tom upped earnings in NE 5,000% & likely another 500% in TB. Wherever Watson, Wilson and Rodgers play next year, those business owners will be smiling as well.
I’m sure investors in Tesla are smiling too but every business person knows that putting all your eggs in one basket is a recipe for disaster.
De-emphasize the importance of the qb position.
Now that’s hilarious. The NFL has been going this direction for far too many years to just say “you know what, forget it. Hit them hard, take out their relievers. Hell, go for his knees! We can sacrifice our seven or eight real QB stars, it’s chump change to us.”
Don’t forget that this is a profit sharing league, in the fact that they split national revenues. Even Jimmy Haslam has gotten to enjoy the checks that come from Rodgers, Brady, and Manning (among others) chewing up defenses for the last decade.
One only has to look at how the positional payrolls are scaled to realize the current model is out of whack and needs a correction. Decades ago the league was run dominated and now it is pass dominated. The league should be striving to find the middle ground which would balance positional salaries better. I haven’t seen any evidence that injury rates vary much regardless of what model is used.
Man, I would laugh so hard if he did that. Just sit out the whole year with a ‘tweaked’ hammy and get paid.
What happens if the win the Super Bowl this year?
They won’t
They have a better chance than around 30 teams going into the season. But I guess saying “They won’t” is an easy thing to say considering only one team can. So brave.
I don’t see how are plays thru injury and at Super Bowl level after that has been said
Setting it up perfectly for Roethlisberger to retire after this year and Rodgers to slot in with the Steelers. #HereWeGo #Steelers
Shame they “borrowed” like $20M against next years’ cap via void year deals.
I don’t doubt they could make it work if they wanted — just wouldn’t be pretty.
Shame with that crappy OLine Rodgers wouldn’t go near the land of the untoothed Black and Urine.
Enjoy the AFCN basement inbreds.
48-37
Yeah, yeah, just don’t hurt yourself hoisting that first Lombardi up over and over again.
…oh wait. Nvm.
If you’re the Packers, trading him now is the right move right? If you have a handshake agreement to trade him a year from now, doesn’t that lower his return?
It’s definitely the right move. Probably lowers it a bit, but should be a nice haul I would guess.
Green Bay would presumably get a teams 2022 1st round pick as part of the deal. If they trade him now (let’s say to Denver) then the Broncos would be a better team next year and the draft pick would likely end up in the latter portion of the round. If they wait until after the season, they could potentially still trade him to Denver but receive a higher draft pick because the Broncos would likely be a bottom of the AFC team again. Better to hang onto Rodgers and get a top 10 pick next year than trade him now and get a pick in the 25-30 range. Rodgers’ contact also becomes cheaper after this year, so that helps his value as well
Supply and demand. Right now Denver would have to outbid no one, next off-season there will be a bigger market.
Both of you are assuming that the value of Rodgers would be the same. Do you think that he’ll be taking any risks this year knowing that he is potentially a free agent at its end, or traded away? Or that he will be as motivated to go all in for a team who would not do the same for him?
A later first round from Denver, or whomever, is still a first round pick. People dismiss as if teams do not still want them. Any team that trades a pick will likely have it be lower with Rodgers than it would without. That’s very often how trades work. It’s ludicrous to assert that teams do not want them, because they make these types of trades frequently with the knowledge that the pick may fall. Besides, Denver is in a tough division, and has a greater chance of having a losing record than teams in weaker divisions who would also excel with Rodgers.
His value now is higher than it will be next year, though the Packers may have more suitors. It also delays their inevitable transition. The majority of this decision, I feel, has to do with treading water for Love and not winning a championship this year-and bringing Adams back to the table.
It would diminish his return but they would have more options. At this point, most teams are pretty set at QB. By season’s end, there could be a bunch of teams who need a QB. For example, if Danny Jones is terrible this year, my Giants will need a QB. Saints, Washington, Indianapolis, etc could be in the same boat.
Agreed, allow me to clarify: they should have traded him a month or two ago, or earlier.
Of course he’s coming back. Did anyone really ever think he wasn’t?
He’s not leaving until he’s retired for good.
Well, it sounds to me that Gutekunst got a talk’n to. Maybe Rogers as well… This new agreement has to be what is best for the team and if Loves outplays Rogers even better.
Murphy is more of the problem than Gutey
I would doubt that severely. Murphy shouldn’t even have to be involved. Gutekunst screwed this up royally, which invited Murphy’s involvement, which of course he did follow through with positively.
Gutekunst is supposed to identify the roster needs, which he failed to do, and instead stuck to a stubborn rebuild plan and refused to compete while alienating his top players. All of these direct failures (not just Rodgers, but which bled into and somewhat even caused the Rodgers debacle) are reasons why Gutekunst is the bigger problem. Murphy should not have to step in to try (and admittedly fail) to restore order.
The Packers front office is setup where Murphy has a-lot of say and control. If there is a hierarchy he is at the top, not same level of Gutey. And if you follow the Packers closely you can see he is the head honcho. And he’s the one who keeps putting his foot in his mouth (complicated fella).
I know and acknowledge that. But again, Murphy is not the one who should be managing the team or players or contracts. All of those are Gutekunst’s responsibility. And those have been the primary problems. If the Packers had a competent GM, Murphy would not have had the opportunity to stick his foot in his mouth.
Good chance Rodgers will be traded somewhere this season if the Packers get off to a poor start and the Vikings look like the division winners.
They wont, they still don’t have a QB.
Might want to check Cousins’ stats since signing with Minnesota, and compare them to other top QBs. It’s okay to dislike him, but we should stop pretending that he is an incompetent starter.
Cousins underrated. Very steady… Traded Rogers for Jefferson and Cousins in fantasy last year. no regrets with that move.
Since entering the NFL in 2012, Kirk Cousins is 7-35 (.166) against teams that finished the season with a winning record. He’s also 1-2 all time in the playoffs. He stinks in big games and it’s been proven again and again and again.
He blows. You can.not.win.with.him. Enjoy another mediocre season.
Make his ass retire sit out and repay signing bonuses etc paid out already .. Green Bay has the power. He would never retire abs pay back 50 mill he would have to repay. Call Rodgers bluff.. giving in to him is stupid
Green Bay does not have the power. If Rodgers sits out, they’re a 6-10 team or worse. If he plays, they’re in the playoffs. Rodgers has made over $100 million in his career. He’s not hurting for money.
So he made himself look petulant, delusional and now, weak and he ensured his team will be surrounded with drama all year long…to slink back in the door?
Sees much better options a year out over the current openings.
I think it’s more important to note what that says about management. Rodgers, as we know, never really had any options but to sit out or report. They’ve had a year with the replacement that they traded up to draft, and still insisted that Rodgers come back. They were so desperate that they’re apparently going to let him leave after this year. Why is it so vital that he stay another year? Pretty obvious answer, right?
How exactly did he do any of these things when he’s said next to nothing publicly about this? I sincerely do not understand the haters on this one.
Players have almost no leverage against ownership when it comes to negotiating and as soon as a player exercises the tiniest bit of leverage, a bunch of rabid fans rip them as ‘petulant’ and ‘delusional’.
This is how negotiating works when you’re in a league with non-guaranteed contracts.
I don’t understand the reply…
I ask why he bothered with all of the histrionics when it was never likely to achieve anything.
The answer appears to be “what do you expect, he was never likely to achieve anything?”
So, I ask again…why?
Because he was unhappy? Maybe he actually did think that he could convince them to trade him? It would have been the logical thing to do, after all. Rodgers tried what he could. In the end he didn’t hold the right cards.
An alternative point of view is that he WAS looking for a guarantee of some kind. Now, presumeably, he’s getting one-to be let loose next year.
AR gets hurt in Game 1, sits out the remainder of the year. Makes money, watches Love tank the Packers. AR for the win!! If they void the last year of his contract, he signs with the Saints, and leads them to back-to-back Super Bowl wins, then he and Sean Payton retire…
Haha
Gives the Packers to find a suitable replacement because the answer is not Love.
The Packers are scared to death to give the reins to Love. Heads would’ve been rolling at the end of this year with Love under center.
That contract needs to say “we the Packers will let Aaron Rodgers opt out of 2022 without penalty.”
You need to have it in writing. And a trade to another team in 2022 only hurts the team you are going to. You want to sign onto a team as a free agent. Just like Brady did.
Who the hell does he think he is!!? He’s already getting 40+ mm AAV now he wants control of the team too? Wow! Just be grateful for what you have dude, this isn’t the NBA and never will be….