Aaron Rodgers‘ Green Bay departure would have been far messier had it occurred in 2021, when he requested to be moved. But the divorce, coming after a prolonged trade negotiation, has still produced a stream of headlines. The new Jets quarterback attempted to set the record straight regarding a few key 2020s Packers plotlines.
Shortly after the Packers traded up for Jordan Love in 2020, Rodgers said he no longer knew finishing his career in Green Bay was realistic. Before the 2021 trade request, Rodgers earned his third MVP honor despite the Packers using their first-round pick on a backup quarterback. While the Love choice did not directly impede Green Bay in 2020, the team suffered another narrow NFC championship defeat — at home against Tampa Bay — as its first-round pick did not contribute. That loss began an annual run of Rodgers-driven offseason uncertainty in Green Bay.
“Did I wanna, years down the line, go, ‘Well, what if we had just taken somebody who could impact our team because we had just gone to the NFC championship?’ Yeah, of course,” Rodgers said (via The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman; subscription required) of the Packers’ decision to draft Love. “I don’t think any other competitor would say anything different.
“… We didn’t win the Super Bowl. [The Packers] had their guy in waiting. I knew that [the team going with Love] was always a possibility, that they would wanna go, ‘You know what? We tried hard. We tried to win a championship. We had a good team, but now it might be time to go with Jordan, move some contract stuff around and do that.'”
The organization made that decision two years after Rodgers requested a trade. The Packers could have obtained more for Rodgers in 2021, given his age and MVP form, but they rebuffed trade overtures during that offseason. Rodgers’ agent is believed to have made a blunt request to Packers president Mark Murphy at that time: trade Rodgers or fire GM Brian Gutekunst. The Rodgers-Gutekunst feud simmered throughout the ’21 offseason, and this ultimatum surfaced that summer. Wednesday’s report lends more support to the Rodgers-or-Gutekunst rumors. The 18-year veteran told Schneidman communication between he and Green Bay management improved once he returned to the team, but it still pales in comparison to the talks he has held with Jets management in the weeks since he arrived.
Although Rodgers re-signed with the Packers — on a three-year, $150.8MM deal the Jets are now in the process of restructuring — in March 2022, team brass has revealed dissatisfaction with the future Hall of Famer’s commitment level last year. The Packers viewed Rodgers skipping OTAs last year as detrimental to Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs‘ rookie-year development, Albert Breer of SI.com notes, and Schneidman adds the team was dissatisfied with Rodgers’ day-to-day commitment throughout last season. The four-time MVP, who has been at Jets OTAs this offseason, disputed the notion his 2022 absence hindered the Packers.
“When I’m in, I’m all in, and you wanna ride with offseason workouts?” Rodgers said. “I won MVP without doing offseason workouts. Like, was my commitment any less then? I’d say not at all. The way that I come back to work, not just physically in good shape but mentally refreshed, is the best thing for me to have the season I wanted to have during those in Green Bay. I think that’s just a cop-out written to try and find something to disparage me about that, honestly, when you know what offseason workouts are really about, it’s completely ridiculous.”
The key difference between Rodgers’ 2021 OTAs absence and his 2022 no-show: receiving talent. Green Bay dealt Davante Adams to Las Vegas and let Marquez Valdes-Scantling leave for Kansas City in free agency last March. Adams has said the Packers’ final offer surpassed the Raiders’ deal (five years, $140MM) and that he wanted to leave Green Bay. But the sides also went through failed negotiations during the 2021 offseason. Adams sought to be the NFL’s highest-paid wide receiver during the summer ’21 talks; Rodgers said the Packers’ initial offer was nowhere close, indicating it checked in below $20MM per year.
Adams broke off talks with the Packers ahead of last season and played out the $14.5MM-per-year extension he had signed in 2017. Although the Packers upped their offer before franchise-tagging him in 2022, Rodgers wonders if the team’s early hesitancy affected the All-Pro wideout’s desire to stay.
“They offered him less money than Christian Kirk and [Adams] is going, ‘Are you serious right now? I’m the best receiver in the league, and you’re gonna offer me less than Christian Kirk?’” Rodgers said of the Pack’s offer compared to Kirk’s $18MM-AAV Jaguars deal. “With all due respect, he’s not on Davante’s level.
“I’m sure that the team will say that’s just the business of negotiation — it’s like, yeah, but you’re also sending a message to that guy, and a lot of times it can stick with guys and make them a little sour on things. … That goes back to the first offer that they made, and I don’t think [the Packers] had the foresight — obviously didn’t have the foresight.”
Rodgers’ numbers suffered without Adams and Valdes-Scantling, with Doubs and Watson — the latter’s late-season surge notwithstanding — not measuring up to the veterans’ contributions. Gutekunst deferred to Rodgers’ MVP awards when asked in January if the veteran starter or Love gave the Packers a better chance to win. Three-plus months later, Rodgers became a Jet. Gutekunst did not believe he could sit Love for a fourth season, per ESPN.com’s Rob Demovsky and Rich Cimini; the sixth-year GM had said many times this offseason the fourth-year backup was ready to play.
Gutekunst and Rodgers did not meet this offseason; scheduling conflicts have been cited. The Packers have also accused Rodgers of rebuffing efforts to meet, per ESPN.com. Rodgers said he reached out to Packers management regarding a meeting with the front office and Matt LaFleur before he trekked to the darkness retreat, but after he referenced the Pack’s lack of communication, a desire to play for the Jets — rather than retire — emerged post-darkness. As Brett Favre did 15 years ago, Rodgers will now attempt to prove the Packers wrong.
“Did Brian text me more than I texted him? Yeah, but did I ghost him? No,” Rodgers said, via Schneidman. “I texted him back. There was back-and-forths that we had and so this is the story you wanna go with? You’re gonna stand on this hill of austerity and say that arguably in the conversation of the best player in your franchise history, you’re gonna say I couldn’t get a hold of him and that’s why we had to move on?
“Like, come on, man. Just tell the truth; you wanted to move on. You didn’t like the fact that we didn’t communicate all the time. Like, listen, I talk to the people that I like.”
Wah wah wah.
Exactly he has always and always be for himself. I’m sorry i lost all respect for him when he signed his first contract and the first thing he did was cut off all communications with parents and family.
His family is trash you’d ghost them too
Your right they raised him fed him took him all his events , gave him a roof to sleep under, doctors appointment what a$$holes!!!
“Girl, don’t go away mad. Girl, just go away.”
With ownership and management that bad, I do wonder what Rodgers should have been expected to do. Not that I’m in favor of passive aggressive public antics, but I also don’t think that he’s factually wrong with any of his assertions.
Remember, it was not just Jordan Love who failed to contribute that year-none of the Packers picks started, and that was on a team with a couple of notable holes (WR, and ILB in particular, as well as lesser holes at DE and TE). Dillon, a 2nd round pick, was the only one to see significant snaps, and he only did so later that year. So, yes, the Packers wasted their window when the solutions were extremely obvious to all involved. But that’s not really new with them, unfortunately.
Mel Gibson- ” Stop it, I’m getting misty”.
Lost alota respect4 Rogers w/his diva antics just like I did @end of Favres career when he became drama queen as well, from great storied competitors2 look @me crybabies
I’m sure he’s devastated
In other news, Scottie Pippen hates Michael Jordan.
Man, I was really hoping after the trade we could all just move on, but silly me, I forgot “serious journalists” need attention as much as high school girls so here we are.
When Danica Patrick seems like the calmer and more reasonable half of that couple…
I’m sure I’m not the only person who doesn’t get this. What does this mean? Is it’s nascar thing? Thanks!
Danica Patrick and Aaron Rodgers were in a relationship, though that ended in 2020 so the og commenter probably hasn’t been caught up to speed.
I am caught up to speed, I just didn’t make it clear that they were formerly a couple. My goof.
This is such a meaningless non story now. Why keep rehashing it?
It’s June lol
Whether you side with Rodgers or not.
Gutnuts is a terrible GM. The sooner he’s gone the better. Perhaps Murphy too.
Love will be on a short leash and more than likely not given a true opportunity to grow and perform. Then if the Pack have a poor season (likely), guess who gets the most of the blame? Love of course!
You must be the insider of all insiders to have this much knowledge. Love will be on a short leash and not given a chance to grow? Who exactly do you see on the roster replacing him when he is supposedly on this short leash considering the current backups are Danny Etling and a rookie whose name nobody can remember off the top of their head. If i had to go out on the weakest of limbs, i think its safe to say the front office is expecting the team to struggle much like the they did in Rodgers first year especially since the entire offense is made up of 1st and 2nd year players, what they are looking for is growth.
@cuban1
Perhaps because I think the Pack will bring in a veteran QB to “backup” Love this year. Frankly, I’m hoping Love is a success and has a long career as the starting QB in Green Bay. Meaning the team is competitive and within range of .500 ball. The problem is the expectations will be high over the next couple of years and the fans will not be patient since they’re spoiled by close to 30 years of a HOF at QB. Let’s also not be foolish and think some of the fans’ impatience has nothing to do with who Jordan Love is. I hope I’m wrong about that.
If Gute and Murphy worked for a team with an Owner they both would have been fired a long time ago… These 2 are fricking idiots
Can all the owners get together and fire them via referendum?
Obviously Rodgers didn’t find a fresh perspective or any humility on his last “darkness retreat”.
He was hallucinating to much for darkness.
TLDR: “I didn’t do anything wrong…” – Aaron Rodgers
Chicken and egg problem. All the Packers needed to do was keep Rodgers surrounded by receiver talent but they just wouldn’t do it – thus Rodgers became a malcontent.
No chicken vs egg conundrum exists. Dinosaurs laid eggs. Chickens did not exist in the time of dinosaurs.
Yes they did
Gutekunst is the worst GM in all of pro sports. He runs a former MVP QB out of town because he wants to show the world that he is the smartest guy in the room and that his chosen golden child Love is a hall of fame player in the making. Yet he does nothing in free agency and in his first draft post Rodgers to help support his golden child and set him up for success. No veteran WRs or TEs are signed. No offensive line help is brought in via free agency either. Gutekunst passes up on the best receiver in the draft and passes on all of the top offensive line talent as well. He then drafts not one, BUT TWO TEs in CONSECUTIVE ROUNDS in the draft. One TE I could see, but taking two, especially in back to back rounds, is not only completely stupid, it’s boarder line criminal. Gutekunst needs to get fired immediately and Murphy should go with him as well.
One of the most asinine and ridiculously lazy takes I’ve ever seen. Well done.
Let’s not forget the ’23 1st round pick is a guy who didn’t start during his time at Iowa.
You do bot know football
Rodgers dismisses OTAs as nothing valuable learned for himself – he pridefully points to himself skipping OTAs and playing at an MVP level. What he can’t fathom is that the young WRs and him needed to spend as much football time as possible together to learn his pet hand signals and his way of thinking on the field.
Wonder if Rogers felt this way when he was backup to Farve
Oh wait, bet he couldn’t wait for him to leave
All I could do is look at the length of the page. Jeez. What’s on the Weather Channel?
Hard to believe I used to really like Aaron Rodgers… he has literally ruined his reputation in the last few years… all self-inflicted and unforced errors. So sad.
Such a whiny little B… he literally forced the team to send off players because he needed the money. I’m thankful because im a Viking fan.
I am not a cap fan because owners are killing it $$$. Still knowing that there is a cap is why so many players take a hit for their team. You can’t complain like an a-hole when you are sucking all the oxygen from your team.
Why are we still talking about this?? Please leave the Rodgers drama alone.
Who cares?
Clearly you do, otherwise you wouldn’t have clicked on it
Overplayed comment kid. It was the first article on the site, I didn’t HAVE to click on it.
It’s possible to scroll past something without reading it. Just because it appears on your screen doesn’t mean you HAVE to read it. “Kid”.
Yeah you’re right, I’m going to come onto this website and scroll past every article on it and just do that for fun. Not read a thing. Some of you on this site are just so da*n dumb it amazes me how you get through a day. First you didn’t want me to click it (and I didn’t) and now you don’t want me to read it because it’s on my screen? Lol FFS get a life.
Bro, you’re the one who took the time to read an article about a subject you supposedly don’t care about. Then as if that wasn’t enough, you wasted your precious time by voicing your displeasure. He’s absolutely right, you could’ve scrolled past. I don’t read articles I dont care about just to then comment “I don’t care” which is exactly what you did. From the sound of it you possibly have too much time on your hands, perhaps you should take your own advice and get yourself a life.
Yeah it really took more than 5 seconds of my ‘precious time’ to type ‘who cares’. Get off my di*k already. Did I ever ask what you did? No because frankly, I don’t care about you… So stop caring how I utilize my free time on a slow day at work. Get it? Got it. Good.
Much in the same way nobody gave a damn that you didn’t care about an article that you were too stupid to scroll past.
You both commented multiple times to show you cared…. See how this works both ways? Bum. I got EXACTLY what I wanted, you bit the bait. Thanks again Fidel.
Sure you did, simple jack, sure you did!
I hope the new york media crucify this bozo
Let it go aaron, just let it go and concentrate on your new team instead of having the packers living rent free on your head