It appears as if Aaron Rodgers and the Packers will be partnering up Chicago Bulls-style for a high-risk Last Dance that will end one of two ways: the Lombardi Trophy heading back to Green Bay, or an utter failure for GM Brian Gutekunst and the Packers’ front office.
After reportedly reaching an agreement with the team this weekend to return to the team for at least next season after receiving multiple concessions from the Packers, Rodgers has reported to Lambeau Field for the start of training camp.
Among the concessions Rodgers has reportedly received:
- Greater say on personnel moves, including a potential trade for Randall Cobb
- A removal of the final year of Rodgers’s contract in 2023, with no franchise tagging allowed
- The Packers “reviewing” Rodgers’ situation at the end of this season
- Mechanisms being put in place to address Rodgers’s issues with the team
- An adjustment of Rodgers’s deal with no loss of income to give the Packers more cap room
As a bonus for the team, adding Rodgers back into the fold frees up more money for Green Bay to try to sign star wide receiver Davante Adams to an extension.
The 37-year-old’s arrival in Green Bay with a reworked deal nearly in place effectively ends an offseason-long game of chicken that has resulted in Rodgers getting what he wanted the entire time: the freedom to decide where he wants to play in 2022.
Rodgers, whose 17-year tenure in Green Bay is longer than any other quarterback in franchise history, is now the master of his own destiny and, like Tom Brady did last March, can leave his longtime home for greener pastures to chase a Super Bowl with a new team if he so chooses. Or, if Rodgers has a good year and decides he wants to stay, he’ll have all the leverage in potential negotiations with the Packers and can strong-arm the team into giving him an extension that includes plenty of terms and guaranteed money. Either way, the ball is now clearly in Rodgers’s court for the future, and he appears set to have full control over how the end of his football career plays out.
Good for him. Maybe not so good for the franchise.
“It’s crazy, and it says ‘I’m bigger than the team,’” a personnel exec told ESPN. “I guess it’s a one-year deal and then trade him.” Likely for 10 cents on the dollar. Should that situation play out, it’ll only be worth it for the Packers if Rodgers can do in Green Bay what Jordan was able to do in his final year in Chicago: win a title.
“We want him back,” team president/CEO Mark Murphy said of Rodgers at Lambeau Field on Monday. “We’re committed to him for 2021 and beyond. We’re looking forward to winning another Super Bowl with him.”
Murphy had better hope that happens this season, as Rodgers’s commitment to the Cheeseheads past the 2021 season has more holes in it than a block of Swiss.
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