Depending on how you slice it, Cheesehead sport fans have been on Aaron Rodgers Watch for days, weeks or months. As the resident Aaron Rodgers apologist with my Cheesehead sports buddies, even I am ready for Rodgers to go to the "New York" Jets. I have become the annoying salary cap guy on the text thread we have rolling with my Cheesehead sports buddies. I say that because despite everything that has gone down, I'd actually take Rodgers back for 2023 if the salary cap implications weren't so bad for the Green Bay Packers. For those that don't obsess over the NFL salary cap, if Rodgers retires or the Packers trade him this off-season, the Packers will have to deal with a ~$40 million dead cap charge. If the Packers bring back Rodgers for 2023 and then Rodgers retires or the Packers trade him next offseason, the Packers have to deal with a ~$60 million dead cap charge. If the Packers bring Rodgers back for 2023 and 2024 then the Packers have a ~$70 million dead cap charge to contend with after the 2024 season. Sure the Packers can spread that cap charge over two years if they move on from Rodgers after June 1st this offseason, next offseason or the offseason after that but realistically the only way that is happening is if Rodgers reties because no team wants to add Rodgers that late in the offseason
I said this in my last blog post on February 1st that if I had to bet, it is more likely that Rodgers gets traded to another team this offseason with the Jets the most likely team to keep this Favre reincarnation simulation going and the Las Vegas Raiders a close second so that Rodgers can reunite with wide receiver Davante Adams than Rodgers plays for them Packers in 2023 but no matter what, I think Rodgers will play football in 2023. That was before Rodgers went on his darkness retreat, which as a sidebar I commend Rodgers for doing because I sadly can't be away from my cell phone for a family dinner with my wife and kids let alone in the dark for four days with just me and my thoughts. My wife and golf buddies would argue that I treat golf trips like darkness retreats and to some extent that is actually true. I unplug, talk with (more accurately at) my playing partners and take in the golf course. Those golf trips truly do help keep me centered since life is stressful dealing with the demands of work and family. In any case, Rodgers recorded a podcast with Aubrey Marcus after this darkness retreat and that affirmed what I thought about Rodgers wanting to play football. Look for all the drama surrounding Rodgers each offseason about whether he is going to play football the following season, there is no doubt that Rodgers played through pretty serious injuries throughout his career. So I get wanting to take some time, the part I don't like is that Rodgers us doing it to have the spotlight on him.
Anyhow, the more I learned about the contract that the Packers signed Rodgers to last offseason, the more enraged I became about it. I honestly think it was organizational malpractice by the Packers. I had a chance chat with Mark Murphy, the president of the Packers, last summer (his daughter lives in the same neighborhood that I do in Chicago) where we chatted for ~15 minutes. No jive, it was one of my highlights of 2022 because I love the Packers that much. I almost asked Murphy about the Rodgers contract but seemed out of bounds given the situation. Plus, it would have guaranteed that Murphy wouldn't send me a return letter like he did in the fall of 2022 after I sent Murphy a note a few weeks before that, which again was another highlight of 2022. I know, I have problems.
Following the 2021 season, Rodgers was coming off back-to-back NFL MVP seasons so there was almost no way that Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst, executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball and Murphy could turn to backup quarterback Jordan Love. It is easy to look at what the Seattle Seahawks got for Russell Wilson and wish the Packers got that that but it is hard to do that if you are Gutekunst, Ball and Murphy. In retrospect it looks like a no brainer but that is not what it looked like at the time. Conversely, the only way this offseason worked out is if the Packers won the Super Bowl. Sure, the Packers were one of the favorites heading into the 2022 NFL season but only one of 32 teams wins the Super Bowl. The salary cap albatross that Tom Brady left behind with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is about the same size as the one that Rodgers will likely leave behind with the Packers when he presumably heads to the Jets later today. That dead salary cap charge is much easier to swallow when you have a Super Bowl to show for it like Brady and the Buccaneers do, which is something the Packers and Rodgers do not have to soften the blow of the dead salary cap charge.
Some of my Chicago golf buddies and my good buddy Spliff that I grew up with inside The Cheddar Curtain went to the Packers/Detroit Lions game at Lambeau Field, which was the last regular season game of the 2022 NFL season. Moose, Spliff and I were the only true Packer fan while Peg (long story) and ETM (Esteban the Magnificent) were rooting for the Packers because they are our good friends. Having been at the Packers/San Francisco 49ers playoff game loss last year in the Packers luxury box thanks to my buddy Fernando, I honestly thought Rodgers was coming back to the Packers for 2022 but I did not feel that way after the Packers loss to the Lions to end last season. Fernando also took me to Favre's last game as a member of the Packers when they lost in the NFC Championship Game to the New York Giants at Lambeau. I say that not as a humblebrag of attending a ton of Packer season ending loses but because the loss to the Lions to end last season felt like sawn song for Rodgers in Green Bay much like the Packers/Giants felt like a sawn song for Favre. So odd that Favre and Rodgers both likely ended their careers as a Packer with a loss thanks to a back breaking interception at Lambeau Field. Given that Favre was turnover prone throughout his career, it felt very fitting for him but Rodgers really never was so it felt like an odd way for him to likely go out that way. I mention those specific games because the Packers have been relevant my entire sports rooting life but they've truly had some tough season ending loses as a result. As my buddy Uncle Patty aka Dirty Nasty likes to say, the sweet ain't as sweet unless you taste the sour. Sadly it has been much more sour than sweet lately. Yet for some odd reason, if the salary cap implications were different, I'd still take Rodgers back for 2023.
No matter what, today truly feels like a true end of an era. I visited my college buddies in New Jersey last weekend for an unofficial college reunion that was one of the best weekends that I've had in a long time. I was prepared for Rodgers to get traded to the Jets while I was in New Jersey and as an only child that thinks the world revolves around me, I thought it would be perfect that I was in New Jersey for the first time in years when Rodgers got traded to the Jets. I had prepared myself for that possibility and frankly even a few years ago it might have ruined my weekend but I was almost welcomed it to happen especially since I was in New Jersey. My guess is that later today Rodgers goes on Pat McAfee's show and announces that he intends to play for the Jets in 2023. A few days too late for this only child but given that is the case, it is now Jordan Love time in Green Bay.
Trust me, it is much more likely that Love is Brett Hundley than Brett Favre but it truly is time to turn the page. I am honestly not looking forward to the stories that come out in the coming weeks/months about how hard it was to deal with Rodgers because honestly that no longer matters. The sport romantic in me wishes Rodgers won another Super Bowl last season for the Packers and road off into the sunset as arguably the greatest Packers of all-time but that didn't happen. The fact that didn't happen is also why fans simultaneously love and hate sports. The beauty of rooting for The People's Team is that hope always seems to spring eternal. I worry that Love will get way more scrutiny than he should since he is trying to become the third franchise quarterback in a row but again that is what makes sports so intoxicating. Maybe it is because I've spent more money than I should for my kids and I to be part owners of the Packers, I mean this blog post alone tells you that my priorities are out of whack, but trust me that the minute I hear a "Go Pack Go" chant the next time that I am at Lambeau, I will root hard for whoever is under center.