IT’S NOT COMPLICATED AT ALL WITH AARON RODGERS

BY ADAM GREENE

According to Green Bay Packers general manager, all the issues with Aaron Rodgers this offseason are because the future Hall of Fame quarterback is a complicated man that no one understands but his woman.

But, of course, Murphy is wrong. It’s not complicated at all. Rodgers is finished playing for the Packers and wants to be traded to a franchise that would more appreciate him. Green Bay, if they were smart (and they are not), would go ahead and do it.

There’s a prevailing thought, a stupid one, that the Pack should call Rodgers bluff. That the guy that’s been spending a “responsibility free” offseason with his aforementioned woman (Shailene Woodley) should be forced to play for Green Bay or no one. I could not disagree more.

First off, this isn’t a fixable problem because Rodgers doesn’t have to fix it. He already has the solution and that’s to don another team’s jersey and throw footballs to their players for touchdowns.

And what everyone needs to realize is that this was all Green Bay’s plan too when they drafted Jordan Love in the 2020 NFL Draft. The problem arose when Rodgers decided not to suck, and instead put forth another MVP season.

If he hadn’t, if he’d been decent, but not spectacular, the Pack would have been more than happy to send him out the door. Now, they’re simply trying not to look bad. And, in doing so, just look dumb.

Rodgers enhanced his value in theory, but there’s problems even with that. They’ll never get what he’s actually worth. That’s certain. What they can do is get as much as they can out of a trade and try to send him to the AFC, where they’d only meet up with him again in the Super Bowl. And since they’d be starting Jordan Love instead of Aaron Rodgers, that’s not really likely to happen.

The price required to nab Rodgers is actually the biggest obstacle to the trade because the MVP you’d think would rightly cost a lot; a minimum of three first round picks and probably more. But the market for Rodgers is small. A team willing to give up that kind of capital would have to feel like they’re close to a title. They’d be mortgaging their future for a chance to hoist a trophy today and have to feel they were just a HoF QB away (Like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers wer). By my math, in the AFC only two teams can even make that argument; the Denver Broncos and Las Vegas Raiders.

You could say, rightly, that the Pittsburgh Steelers could and should be in that conversation, but they haven’t actively pissed off their Hall of Fame quarterback and still have another year out of him at least. If, somehow, the Pack were able to hold off on trading Rodgers until the 2022 season, they would certainly be an option as well.

If you were to go over to the NFC, which you shouldn’t, then you can add the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings to the mix. And that’s pretty much it. Four teams in all of the NFL that could make the case for that kind of deal.

The Raiders are in good shape with Derek Carr, regardless of how Jon Gruden waffles about him. The Broncos, Saints and Vikings not so much.

What the Packers can’t do is let that market change any more, because that price (three firsts) drops the less a team feels it needs Rodgers to compete. If the season starts and Denver comes out the gate strong with Teddy Bridgewater, they’ll take themselves out of the running. Jameis Winston could do the same with the Saints.

The Raiders are out the minute training camp begins so that just leaves the Vikings, in the Packers’ own division. The team that ended up with Brett Favre the last time this happened.

And none of that is factoring in Deshaun Watson, who the Texans are looking to trade in the next month or so for whatever they can get out of him.

It’s a no-win situation and the Pack would be smart to sort it out now, while they still have the chance to recoup some of Rodgers’ value. This isn’t a Carson Palmer situation (when the QB “retired” to force a deadline trade). The NFL landscape, and the talent of the overall QB pool, has changed since then. Green Bay can’t afford to kick the can any further down the road.

Complications be damned.

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