The Green Bay Packers are working toward a new era, as they are ready to move on from quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers has made his intentions clear, as he intends to play with the New York Jets in 2023.
Before going out on his darkness retreat, Rodgers revealed he was leaning toward retirement. But, once emerging from it, Rodgers decided that he wanted to play again this upcoming season. However, when reading between the lines, the only thing that was certain following that Week 18 loss to the Detroit Lions was that he wasn’t returning to Green Bay.
The cracks in the relationship between Rodgers and the Packers began showing after they traded up to select quarterback Jordan Love in the 2020 NFL Draft. With his replacement on the roster, Rodgers contemplated leaving each offseason since. After two years of just rumors swirling about it, this year it will come to fruition at some point.
More information will assuredly come out in the coming weeks and months about what caused this divorce to occur, but one thing is for sure; it will be ugly. From what Zach Gelb of CBS Sports Radio shared, there was some stuff going on last season that left the Packers a bit fed up with Rodgers.
Early on in Matt LaFleur’s tenure as head coach of the Packers, there was some friction between him and Rodgers when it came to game planning and play calls on the field. So, LaFleur decided to have meetings with Rodgers to ensure he had more say in what was going on. More often than not, according to Gelb, Rodgers would no-show at these meetings, leaving LaFleur sitting there waiting with no word he wasn’t going to attend.
So, the animosity between the two sides seems to be deeper than originally thought. Whatever would possess Rodgers to not even give the common courtesy of saying he was not attending just shows how much he was over the whole situation.
Moving on from a franchise quarterback, especially one that is heading to the Hall of Fame, certainly isn’t easy. But, the Packers rode things out as long as they could with Rodgers. As the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end. For the Packers and Rodgers, the good times seemingly stopped well before their eventual parting of ways this offseason.
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