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On Sunday, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers spontaneously gave all sports media a multi-day discussion point, spontaneously raising the vague question of whether he played his last game in the Packers uniform. On Tuesday, Rodgers tried to get him out.
It’s too late for that.
“The futures of many guys who are, you know, uncertain, including me,” said Rodgers, in response to a question that had nothing to do with his future. Rodgers later said that “[t]here are many unknowns entering this off-season ”, without identifying any of the unknowns.
His comments made several experienced reporters covering the team notice something ominous in Rodgers’ words. For example, Jason Wilde of ESPN Wisconsin, who knows Rodgers very well, said Rodgers “it sure sounded like a guy saying goodbye. “
In his regular appearance on Tuesday in The Pat McAfee ShowRodgers tried to say goodbye to any conversation he was saying goodbye to.
“After the season I had, potentially winning the MVP, and obviously we had another good race, I don’t think there’s any reason why I shouldn’t be back,” said Rodgers. “But there are not many absolutes, as you know, in this business. To make an absolute statement about something that is not absolute, I did not do that. “
But in his final press conference for the 2019 season, Rodgers implied an absolute statement about his status for 2020 when he said this after a loss to the 49ers in the NFC championship: “The window is open for us, and that’s what It’s exciting . I think we’ll be on the right side of one of these soon. “
The difference, of course, is that the Packers called on quarterback Jordan Love in April, giving up a choice in the first round and a choice in the fourth inning to catch him. Entering the off-season of 2021 after a stellar 2020, Rodgers has every right to want clarity about his future with the team, given his deliberate decision to avoid the opportunity to add weapons when adding a quarterback.
Do the Packers foresee another year? Two more years? Three? Will Love eventually become the starter, or will he be traded, as Jimmy Garoppolo was in New England, in the fourth season after he arrived as a potential replacement for Tom Brady?
Rodgers wants a new contract. With the intention of never incurring the ire of Packers fans, he will act as if he did not. But it does. Because a new contract will give you the clarity you are looking for. Alternatively, refusing to give him that contract will provide a different kind of clarity – and it will probably lead Rodgers to start making a plan for the future with a new team, possibly in 2021, but more likely in 2022.
Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports, who confirmed that Rodgers wants a new contract during a Tuesday appearance at Peacock’s Brother of another, made an excellent point about the dilemma created for reporters and analysts when Rodgers uses news conferences or other public settings to send messages. Any reporter who gets the message and dares to articulate it ends up being grouped by Rodgers in a bucket of click-inducers and troublemakers who suddenly don’t know what they’re talking about.
I was there. During the 2016 season, Rodgers on several occasions raised concerns that went directly back to coach Mike McCarthy. Rodgers cited a “lack of energy” in a home loss to the Colts, explaining that “the same kind of enthusiasm and encouragement” was lacking. After losing 47 points in a defeat to the Titans, Rodgers said: “There must be that healthy fear as a player that if you don’t do your job, they will get rid of you.
Although Rodgers never linked these concerns to the team’s McCarthy training, I did. History has proved that this interpretation is accurate. My reward, of course, was to have Rodgers complain in his closet about reporters who were interpreting his words as complaints about McCarthy.
“Especially guys like Mike Florio,” said Rodgers. “Don’t waste your time reading junk like that.”
Although no good deed goes unpunished when it comes to Aaron Rodgers, I will say it again: he wants and deserves clarity about his future. He wants and deserves to know that it is more than an option year by year. And if he finds out that it’s an option year by year (by refusing to give him a new contract that will consolidate the relationship by 2022 or 2023), that’s when he’ll want and deserve to start planning his next move.
Then, when he sends unmistakable messages and reporters and analysts notice and react to it, he can dust Steve Urkel’s phrase and tell people not to waste their time reading or listening to junk like that.