Aaron Out Grievances

Hours before the start of the NFL Draft, Aaron Rodgers unveiled the worst-kept secret in professional football: He no longer wanted to be a Green Bay Packer.

The news took the sports world by storm but it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to Rodgers’ tenure in Titletown or watched how players of the reigning MVP’s caliber have ended the tail end of their careers.

Rodgers’ own road to glory in Green Bay began only after the Packers sent his legendary predecessor Brett Favre to New York kicking and screaming after his latest retirement charade. Just four months ago, Rodgers watched Tom Brady win his seventh Super Bowl in his first year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after two decades of dominance with the New England Patriots. Peyton Manning, Phillip Rivers, Adrian Peterson, Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Emmitt Smith, Joe Namath.....all football icons who were forced to write their final chapters elsewhere after the teams they helped build decided to cut the cord.

The 37-year-old hasn’t publicly demanded a trade nor has he offered much on his desire to leave the only team he’s ever known. Instead, most, if not all, of the story has been told through third-party reports and internet gossip ranging from Rodgers being upset over the release of wideout Jake Kumerow to him wanting general manager Brian Gutekunst fired. The Packers have sent everyone within the team’s power structure Rodgers’ way to change his mind while expressing their desire to hang on to their franchise QB when speaking to the media.

However, Rodgers’ inevitable departure from Green Bay seemed avoidable.

For 13 seasons as a starter, Rodgers made the Packers a legitimate title contender, won three MVPs and led the team to its first Super Bowl win since 1997 as a sixth seed. During that span, the franchise attempted to protect its franchise quarterback behind subpar offensive lines, forced him to compensate for leaky defensive units and repeatedly ignored his requests to put talent around him either by being too cheap or choosing to build other areas.

Case in point: On the night Rodgers made his unhappiness public, the Packers doubled down on its second straight offseason of inactivity by neglecting to get their quarterback a new target until late in the third round by selecting slot receiver Amari Rodgers out of Clemson.

In fact, since Rodgers was drafted in 2005, the Packers have used a first-round pick on an offensive skill position player just once.

That player? Rodgers’ heir apparent Jordan Love last year.

That’s not to say Rodgers has been a one-man show. Green Bay has shown a knack for finding key players in later rounds such as Davante Adams, Aaron Jones, Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb. However, for every Jones or Adams, there’s the Packers passing on AJ Brown and DK Metcalf in 2019 to take safety Darnell Savage or trading up last year to take Love instead moving up a little higher for Justin Jefferson.

Making matters worse, Rodgers watched Brady’s Buccaneers work magic on a significantly lower salary cap and return all 22 starters from a championship team while A-Rod’s Packers let the league’s best center Corey Linsley walk to Los Angeles.

So, what happens now?

A trade happening anytime soon seems unlikely. The Packers are adamant they are committed to Rodgers even if Rodgers isn’t committed to them and already turned down an offer from the San Francisco 49ers that centered around the No. 3 overall pick.

The Niners, along with the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders, were reportedly on Rodgers’ preferred list of destinations. However, the Broncos claim to be content with the duo of Drew Lock and Teddy Bridgewater while the Raiders are invested in Derek Carr. The draft also eliminated a number of potential landing spots outside of A-Rod’s wish list as five QBs went in the first round.

Another blow to Rodgers’ leverage is his contract. He’s signed to the Packers through 2023 with no guaranteed money left on his deal and he doesn’t have a no-trade clause. In other words, there’s nothing forcing Green Bay to send Rodgers where he wants to go even if they decide to move him.

His latest bargaining chip has been threatening retirement. Rodgers was a guest host on Jeopardy! during the offseason and has been very open about wanting the gig full time. That’s unlikely to budge the franchise as it would eventually save the cap-strapped Pack some money and they already have his replacement on the roster.

Even if Rodgers and the Packers can come to a compromise and table their separation until next year, the three-time MVP will be potentially competing on the trade market with Deshaun Watson (assuming his legal troubles are behind him by then) and Russell Wilson. Both are younger than Rodgers and both expressed a desire to be traded earlier this offseason. There’s also the reality that, no matter where Rodgers lands, he’s going to have to accept a mentor role at some point. No team is going to acquire an oft-injured QB in his late-30’s without some kind of contingency plan in place.

This story is going to continue to get ugly and neither side is without fault. Rodgers earned a reputation for being defiant from the way things ended with previous head coach Mike McCarthy and Rodgers’ Willie Beaman-like tendency to call his own plays. That stigma is unlikely to change as he holds the team hostage until it meets his demands.

While his frustration is understandable, he has to realize he has it better than most. He’s not running for his life behind a patchwork offensive line like Wilson has in Seattle the past eight seasons. He’s not watching his supporting cast get traded away for 30 cents on the dollar like Watson did with DeAndre Hopkins last year. He has arguably the league’s best receiver in Adams and another budding star in Aaron Jones, who just re-signed for four more years off the strength of what the team has done the past few seasons. There’s also little incentive to pump more capital into skill players when Rodgers managed to win MVP and lead the team back to the NFC championship for the second straight season with the crew he has.

As for the Packers, when the best player your franchise has ever had is asking for help, you listen. The NFL Draft has been deep at receiver the past three years and the team has opted to look in other directions. That would be admirable if those choices turned out to be stars but only five first-round picks have made the Pro Bowl since 2006 (AJ Hawk, BJ Raji, Clay Matthews, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, Jaire Alexander, with only Alexander still with the team). If Rodgers never plays another down for Green Bay, the decision to not take the Niners’ offer is going to come back to haunt them more than playing against him would have.

There’s also the residual effect to this standoff. Adams made news earlier this week when he posted a cryptic tweet about appreciating “what you got while ya got it” (which was “liked” by Rodgers’ account). It could be about the turmoil in Titletown. It could be about the McRib. We’ll never know for sure.

But if the Rodgers mess sets off some kind of mutiny in Green Bay, the team will be staring down its worst loss of the year five months before the 2021 season even opens up.