Aaron Rodgers once again will sit and watch the Super Bowl from home Sunday, but if he wants to give it another go in 2022, it sounds like he might be staying with the Packers in order to do so.
Green Bay ultimately gave Rodgers what he wanted last offseason, which is the freedom to choose whether he left the Pack after the 2021 campaign. Rodgers, who won his second consecutive MVP this week, was unhappy with a perceived lack of collaboration with the team and seemed ready to force his way out of town entering the season.
Those tensions seemed to thaw over the course of the season with Green Bay apparently going out of its way to make Rodgers feel more included and appreciated. It seems to have worked, as the QB returning to the only NFL team he’s ever known sounds more and more likely with each report.
Top NFL insiders Adam Schefter (ESPN) and Ian Rapoport (NFL Media) on Sunday reported the Packers are hellbent on getting Rodgers back in green and gold for 2022 and beyond and are willing to pay up in order to make it happen.
“Packers are prepared to go all-in for Aaron Rodgers in 2022,” Schefter tweeted, citing sources, saying the Packers would “(spend) as close to the cap this year and spreading it into future years as much as possible.”
Schefter compared it to what the Saints did to keep Drew Brees in New Orleans until his career ended.
“This relationship between Rodgers and the Packers is as good as it’s been in quite some time,” Rapoport said Sunday morning on NFL Network. “Case in point: He spent three or four extra days after the season going over the future with Matt LaFleur. If Rodgers is going to stay, he’s going to need a contract extension, and I’m told the Packers are prepared to make him the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL. It would likely be a two-year deal with voidable years to make it work cap-wise.”
Rapoport added a contract extension of that magnitude likely would check in around $45 million per season and would end when Rodgers is 40.
It’s hard to fault the Packers for wanting Rodgers — despite his warts — back for a couple of more kicks at the can. At the very least, reorganizing the financials postpones a potential salary-cap reckoning for the Packers while giving them another chance at winning that elusive second Super Bowl with Rodgers under center. He’s obviously still playing at a very high level, too, and Green Bay won’t have anyone at QB over the next two years who is better.
The issue, if you want to call it that, is what the Packers do with Jordan Love. Green Bay drafted the quarterback in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft presumably to be Rodgers’ successor. Since Love was drafted, though, Rodgers has won the MVP twice. It probably makes the most sense to trade Love while he’s still on his rookie contract, but he just spent two seasons on the bench, so it’s hard to say what he can be. Short of regaining a first-rounder in any trade, it’s hard to say the Packers didn’t waste a first-round pick — still in Rodgers’ remarkable prime — taking Love in 2020.
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