No one really knows what Aaron Rodgers is going to do this offseason.
But with each passing day that lacks a resolution, a man who was in the group that brought Rodgers to the Packers grows increasingly convinced we’ve seen the last of the legendary quarterback in Green Bay.
Rodgers is under contract with the Packers for next season, but it’s plausible that he either retires or forces a trade. The door also isn’t closed on him returning to the Packers next season.
But Andrew Brandt, now with Sports Illustrated, explained on “The Rich Eisen Show” why all the signs to him are pointing toward a split.
“I have maintained, realizing I could be wrong, I think this is the separation point between him and the Packers,” Brandt said Wednesday. “A couple reasons I keep going back to: draft night 2020 where everyone is in their basement, the COVID draft, I just remember seared images in my mind of Brian Gutekunst and Matt LaFleur smiling ear-to-ear that they had just traded up to get Jordan Love. Now, with Aaron, we sat back and waited, we didn’t want to take a quarterback but he was staring us in the face and he fell in our lap. With Jordan Love, they went up and got him, and I just don’t think they got him for him to sit three years. Certainly one year, but I thought two years, I have just thought two years.
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“So here we are now, and of course they didn’t expect Aaron to have two MVP years,” Brandt continued. “But we keep hearing about how Aaron doesn’t know yet, I’m like, if he wanted to come back and everything was copacetic with the Packers then what are we doing here? This idea that they hired his old coach (Tom Clements), well his old coach coached him when he was a young quarterback, which would be good for Jordan Love. Or this idea that he’s getting along better with the front office, well if he’s getting along better with the front office then let’s go, what are we waiting for?
“I’m trying to say this is why I think there will be a separation. And the separation could be a trade, it could be retirement, that’s secondary. But as it continues to take longer, I’m staying with what I’ve felt all along that this is a separation point.”
For what it's worth, Gutekunst said at the NFL Draft Combine on Wednesday that no teams had called about a Rodgers trade.
The Packers have a messy cap situation, and we’re now just a few weeks from the start of free agency. Rodgers dragged things out well into the summer last offseason before firmly committing to the Packers, but if Green Bay gets its way this time around, a decision will be made in the not-too-distant future.
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