Sports Time Radio

Well it looks like the saga between Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers is back as the main story this NFL off season. For a while this story disappeared as everyone focused on the draft, but with that in the rearview mirror I guess people needed something to talk about.

In case you haven’t heard this story before it’s pretty simple. Rodgers informed the Packers that he o longer wanted to play for them. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone when the Packers said they had no interest in dealing him and that they’d like to work whatever this is out. Again no one was shocked when Rodgers didn’t report to Green Bay’s OTA’s and the Packers reiterated they have no desire to trade Rodgers.

Rodgers just won his third career MVP last season and you can certainly understand why Green Bay would like to hang onto a quarterback like that. It seems like the questions are; will Rodgers sit out or retire? Or will Green Bay give in and deal the player most consider the second best quarterback in the NFL?

If Rodgers is traded it seems as though the Denver Broncos are the front runners to land him, but what would a deal for a players like Rodgers look like. While the Packers do have Jordan Love on their roster you’d still have to think they’d receive one of the Broncos quarterbacks in this type of deal be it Drew Lock or Teddy Bridgewater, but what else would be included? I’ve heard different analyst say three 1st round picks would be part of this deal, but is that enough for a quarterback of Rodgers caliber?

I’m not sure what the internal problems are that Rodgers is having with the Packers, but they must be very serious if he’s willing to leave a team that is a Super Bowl contender every season with him under center. Could it really be that the drafting of Love in the 1st round in 2020 instead of taking a offensive weapon for Rodgers really have pushed him over the edge?

Maybe Rodgers saw the same scenario that led to him taking over the as Green Bay’s starting quarterback. Before Rodgers was the Packers starter they had another Hall of Fame quarterback taking snaps for them in Brett Favre. Now unlike the Favre situation Rodgers still has three years remaining on his contract with Green Bay.

If the Packers have decided to trade Rodgers it’s going to happen now. By waiting until after June 1st the Packers free up $16.05 million dollars in cap space. Of course by trading Rodgers the Packers would still be have to absorb a salary cap hit of $21.152 million dollars. Now that’s not as much as some teams had to handle this off season when a lot of teams moved quarterbacks, but that’s still a pretty big number for a team like Green Bay.

Now if Rodgers is actually traded you’d have to think that the Packers would word this deal very much like they did when they dealt Favre to the New York Jets. Remember when it became known that Favre would be available the Minnesota Vikings where the prime landing spot for him, but there was no way the Packers where going to trade him within their own division and have to face him twice a season. When Favre was traded to the Jets there was a clause in the deal that prohibited the Jets from trading Favre to an NFC North team. There’s no way the Packers would want to see Rodgers in someone else’s uniform; so let’s say he goes to the Broncos in a trade. I’d be willing to guess that there will be another clause that says that Rodgers can’t be traded to an NFC north or maybe even an NFC team.

I know there are people out their going wait Favre ended his career with the Vikings. How did he do that? Well the Jets released Favre and that made him eligible to sign with any team of his choosing and to the surprise of absolutely no one he decided to sign with Minnesota.

Now Rodgers does have one other option. He could just retire and walk away from the NFL, but he’d be leaving about $72 million dollars in salary and bonus money on the table. Now to be fair you’d like to think that Rodgers doesn’t need the money as he’s made close to $241 million dollars in his career. Of course we’ve seen situations like this where said player comes back because he wants that money, but is Rodgers that type of person?

Now no matter where this leads you have to give the Packers a little bit of credit for just standing their ground. In most of these cases the team in question is quaking in their boots about losing their star player in general make a bad trade to try and get something for that player. I guess now will just have to wait and see how this plays out between these two parties.

So what do you think. What uniform do you see Rodgers wearing when Week 1 of the 2021 NFL season comes around? Or let me know if you think Rodgers will simple walk away from the NFL.

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