It’s been a frustrating year for Aaron Rodgers. After leading Green Bay to the NFC Championship game, the Packers traded up in the NFL Draft to select Rodgers’ successor, Jordan Love, and they opted against getting Rodgers more help before the trade deadline, apparently unwilling to pay the Texans’ asking price for wide receiver Will Fuller.
After Green Bay drafted Love, the narrative became, “When will the Packers move on from Rodgers?” Well, as Zach Gelb observed, perhaps the narrative should be, “When will Rodgers move on from the Packers?”
“He has handled and said everything the right way,” Gelb said on The Zach Gelb Show. “He hasn’t been a jerk to Jordan love. He’s understood the situation Jordan Love is in because it was similar – not the same, but it was similar – to the situation that he was in when he was a rookie in this league with Brett Favre.
“So I’ve liked everything I’ve heard from Aaron Rodgers,” Gelb continued. “But I think this year probably has to be emotionally stressful for Aaron Rodgers even though he gives us the public perception that he’s very laid back, cool and calm and accepting and understanding of the situation.”
The Packers (5-2) started 4-0 this season but have lost two of their last three games. They got blown out by the Buccaneers, 38-10, in Tampa, and they lost at home to the Vikings, 28-22. Rodgers, it seems, would have loved for the Packers to acquire a wide receiver before the trade deadline – which is something they didn’t do in the draft.
Nope. Didn’t happen.
“I wonder what’s going through Aaron Rodgers’ head right now,” Gelb said. “It wouldn’t surprise me in this offseason if Aaron Rodgers says, ‘Green Bay, I know you want to have me here for three more years or two more years and then move on to Jordan Love. We’ve been through a lot. I always will love you. We’ve won a Super Bowl together. But I’m in the business of winning another Super Bowl.’”
Maybe the Packers win a Super Bowl this season. Or, maybe due to a lack of weapons and a leaky run defense, they don’t.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if Rodgers does that this offseason,” Gelb said. “It also wouldn’t surprise me if Rodgers doesn’t give the organization [the] chance [to get him what he wants] and he just goes up to them and says, ‘I want out. This year was emotionally stressful. All the Jordan Love stuff, I said all the right things. Do right by me. Trade me.’ The Packers don’t have to trade him, but I wonder if Rodgers will do that.”
Gelb identified five potential landing spots for Rodgers: the 49ers in the NFC and the Patriots, Raiders, Browns, or Colts in the AFC.
“If you’re the Packers, would you want to keep him in the NFC? No, I don’t think they trade him in the conference,” Gelb said. “But then you sit there in the AFC, [and there’s Bill] Belichick, [Jon] Gruden, Browns, Indianapolis. Those would be the four. Any of those four teams, you got to be fine [if you’re Rodgers], right? So those are four teams to watch in the AFC if Rodgers [demands a trade].”