After winning back-to-back MVP awards, Aaron Rodgers headed into this season with a shot to win his third straight MVP award and fifth overall. That shot fell well short as the longtime Packer had a down season and Green Bay finished 8-9 and out of the playoffs. By virtue of not making the postseason, Rodgers also didn’t have a chance at winning the Super Bowl, something he hasn’t done in more than a decade.
Speaking on The Pat McAfee Show as he does almost every week, Rodgers, expressed that he feels he is still capable of winning MVP but didn’t really stress that winning the Super Bowl is all that important to him. “Do I still think I can play?” Rodgers, who has won four MVPs since winning his lone Super Bowl and also lost four times in the NFC Championship Game, told McAfee. “Of course. Of course. Can I play at a high level? Yeah. The highest. I think I can win MVP again, in the right situation. The right situation — is that Green Bay or is that somewhere else? I’m not sure.”
It’s interesting Rodgers is already willing to discuss leaving Green Bay after signing a deal during the offseason that made him the highest-paid player in the NFL. It’s also telling that he’s focused on his individual performance instead of helping the team that made him the highest-paid player in the NFL win another title.
As has previously been pointed out, Rodgers is the polar opposite of Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who is far more concerned with winning Super Bowls than winning MVP awards. “I honestly don’t care,” Mahomes told ProFootbalTalk in December about possibly winning a second MVP award. “As long as we win the Super Bowl, it won’t matter to me. I just try to go out there and compete. I’ve won an MVP and I won a Super Bowl and a Super Bowl is a lot better.”
Likely thanks to that attitude, Mahomes is still competing for a Super Bowl this season and will lead the Chiefs against the Jacksonville Jaguars on Saturday afternoon in Kansas City. Rodgers, who will be looking to regroup this offseason and reinvent himself the same way he did following a poor 2019 season, will be watching from home.
“A lot of people said I was washed, couldn’t really play anymore, wasn’t the same,” Rodgers said his year in ’19. “And then I won two MVPs in a row without really doing anything different. I’m sure there’s a lot of the same sentiment this year.”
We don’t agree with Rodgers about much, but he’s right about that.
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