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GREEN BAY, Wis. — Watch quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ speech when he accepted the MVP award on Saturday night and you might conclude one thing about his future with the Green Bay Packers. Listen to what he said in his 11-minute news conference moments later when he walked off the NFL Honors stage and perhaps you have other ideas. Read the reports, including one by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, that came out the morning of the Super Bowl, and you might be swayed to an entirely different direction.
The reality right now is this: Everyone is just reading the tea leaves. If anyone knows what Rodgers has planned for the 2022 season and beyond, it’s probably only him, and perhaps his “inner circle” as he called it on Saturday night.
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Rodgers has said repeatedly he won’t take long to decide, and he offered the franchise-tag window (Feb. 22 to March 8) as a possible timeframe, given that it would tie into receiver Davante Adams’ future with the Packers – something that would seemingly be a prerequisite for Rodgers’ return.
While the Packers wait for Rodgers to decide, they’ve taken every opportunity to make it clear they want him back. And while it would seem obvious any team in their position would want the same thing, the Packers’ overtly public approach also says something else: They learned from the Brett Favre divorce in 2008, and they don’t want to lose in the court of public opinion like they did in that case.
Packers president Mark Murphy presided over the awkward Favre-to-Rodgers transition. General manager Brian Gutekunst was an area scout at the time, but he worked under then-GM Ted Thompson. Thompson and Murphy became Public Enemy Nos. 1a and 1b in the summer of 2008. A large portion of the fan base believed the Packers erred in not allowing Favre to return to the team after he unretired.
By making it abundantly clear they want Rodgers to finish his career with the…
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Source : espn
