Though it has flown somewhat under the radar, there has been a steady stream of sentiment in recent weeks about Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers leaving Green Bay for a new job that has nothing to do with hosting Jeopardy!.
On both a local and national level, there has been buzz that Rodgers could be headed to New England via trade or following the season to play quarterback for the Patriots. See below:
While those reports come from lesser-known sources, veteran Patriots reporter Tom Curran, who often has the inside scoop on the team, penned a piece earlier this week about the prospect of Rodgers heading to the Patriots, giving the topic instant legitimacy.
Partially based on both New England’s seeming lack of urgency to find a worthy successor to Tom Brady and Green Bay’s apparent reluctance to re-commit to Rodgers, Curran believes the Patriots could be interested in making a run at the reigning MVP — who completed over 70% of his passes for 4,299 yards and a 48-5 touchdown-to-interception ratio last season — in 2022.
As Curran points out, the Packers have second-year quarterback Jordan Love waiting in the wings and would have the opportunity to deal Rodgers, who is under contract through ’23, for a significant haul of draft picks if he has another MVP-quality year.
Bill Belichick, who knows a thing or two about coaching aging quarterbacks, clearly mismanaged Brady’s exit from New England and might be facing pressure from owner Robert Kraft to make up for it. Also, Belichick is intent on breaking Don Shula’s all-time record for wins by an NFL coach and can’t afford to keep going 7-9 like he did last season. Could bringing in Rodgers, who will turn 38 in December, be the solution?
“Situations like this one are why the Patriots should just keep surveying the landscape,” Curran wrote. “Green Bay has a high pick sitting behind Rodgers. They want to go year-to-year with him. Rodgers is irritated by both the kid drafted to apprentice for him and the Packers’ foot-dragging. He’s old. He’s expensive. He can be a lot of work. But he’s still very, very good even though he isn’t surrounded by top-flight offensive personnel. It’s not going to happen this year. But if you’re the Patriots, you want to keep your options open as long as you can until the answer is revealed. And the answer isn’t in trading up in this draft.”
For what it’s worth, FS1 host Nick Wright compared Rodgers going to the Patriots to winning the lottery without buying tickets or marrying Rihanna without meeting her. “The idea that the Patriots are waiting on a 37-year-old QB, with three years left on a contract with another team, is ridiculous,” he said.
And Wright is far from the only talking head to call the Rodgers rumors hogwash.
Clearly, there is no consensus about the Rodgers rumors and no reason to expect to see him under center in Foxboro in the near future. That said, sometimes when there’s smoke, there’s fire. Nothing is burning yet … but wait until next offseason, just like Belichick and the Patriots might be doing.
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