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It must be exhausting to be Aaron Rodgers.
A calculated business decision by the Green Bay Packers will now be used as the next slight to fuel him. It’s the story of his entire career, one that’s made him one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.
But my God, has it grown tiresome.
The quarterback insisted Wednesday there are no hard feelings with his soon-to-be-former team and said he understands why the Green Bay Packers want to move on. But his not-so-subtle digs at the organization – an organization that has increasingly indulged him in recent years, I might add – and his explanation for why he now wants to play when just a few weeks ago he was certain he didn’t, told a different story.
“There isn’t a bad guy in the situation as long as everything gets resolved the right way,” Rodgers said during his hourlong appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show.”
“They want to move on, and now I want to play.”
The NFL is a business. An unrelenting one that leaves no room for sentimentality or indecision. At 39, Rodgers has already cheated Mother Nature by a season or two. Tom Brady aside, most quarterbacks his age are more suited for a headset and a clipboard, not another season as a starter.
Rodgers might only be a year removed from his fourth MVP award, but he also just had the worst season since his first as a starter. The Packers can’t afford to gamble on which one is more likely to happen again, especially when a wrong decision could derail the franchise for the next decade or more.
“They like to get rid of players a year early instead of a year late,” Rodgers said.
Well, yes. That’s what winning organizations do.
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Better to let someone go too soon than be saddled with a veteran in decline who is eating up precious cap space. Better to find out now, while he still comes cheap, if Jordan Love can be a franchise quarterback and come up with a Plan B if he’s not.
“There’s a way of doing it that allows a man to keep his dignity,” Rodgers said of Green Bay moving on.
The Packers tried that, and look where it got them.
Green Bay’s front office initially said it was Rodgers’ choice whether to return or not, and he said after the season finale that he was “not gonna hold them hostage” by dragging out his decision. But January turned into February and February turned into March, and the Packers were still just as much in the dark as Rodgers was when he was sitting with his feelings in the wilderness.
“When I came out of the darkness, something changed. I’m not exactly sure what that was, but something changed,” Rodgers said. “I heard from multiple people that I trust around the league, players mostly, that there was some shopping going on. They were interested in actually moving me.”
That’s how it works. Business decisions are made on the facts as you know them, not on what might be or signs from the universe. Rodgers said he would have appreciated “direct communication” from the Packers but I bet they would have, too, rather than the hints he’d drop here and there.
Rodgers has gotten used to calling the shots in Green Bay and, to a degree, the Packers owed him that. They went from one Hall of Fame quarterback to another, winning the Super Bowl in Rodgers’ third season as a starter.
He took the Packers to the NFC Championship four other times and owned the NFC North. That roar you heard from the Midwest on Wednesday afternoon was not waves crashing along the shores of Lake Michigan.
This wasn’t a one-sided relationship, though. Rodgers got plenty out of Green Bay, too. The Packers kept or brought back players and coaches because Rodgers wanted them to. When he lied about his vaccination status in 2021, when the NFL was hyper-vigilant about COVID protocols, the Packers and their fanbase had his back.
Even his growing eccentricities were tolerated more than they would have been in other markets.
But Rodgers wanted to be kingmaker and was shocked when the Packers were no longer interested.
“It is what it is,” he said. “The Packers would like to move on. They’ve let me know that in so many words. They’ve let other people know that in direct words.”
For someone who insists he’s not a victim, Rodgers sure can play one well.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on Twitter @nrarmour.
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