What's next key date in Aaron Rodgers' standoff with Packers? It might not be what you think
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers are pretty much where they were at the NFL draft almost a month ago.
Rodgers’ interview Monday with Kenny Mayne on ESPN revealed little other than to confirm the 2020 MVP quarterback’s desire to move on ("Anything is on the table right now," he said) and enmity for the team’s front office.
"It is about the people that make the thing go,” Rodgers said. “It's about character, it's about culture, it's about doing things the right way. A lot of this was put into motion last year, and the wrench was just kind of thrown into it when I won MVP and played the way I played last year.”
Translation: Everything involved in the selection of Jordan Love in the first round of the 2020 draft left Rodgers feeling wholly unappreciated by his top bosses (general manager Brian Gutekunst and President/CEO Mark Murphy) and certain they were pushing him out the door.
My bottom line is the same as it has been for nearly a month, too. I get that Rodgers was incensed by the Love pick. Any of us would have felt the same. But now that the Packers have publicly and privately begged him to return and reportedly offered the contractual assurances they balked at early in the offseason, why still blow the whole thing up?
And just as a month ago, the next date that matters in this melodrama isn’t June 1, after which the Packers can trade Rodgers with more favorable salary-cap ramifications this year. Even if the Packers end up trading him, there’s no hurry to do it in June unless somebody makes a ridiculous offer.
The next date that matters isn’t the start of the Packers’ three-day mandatory minicamp June 8, either. Rodgers will incur about $88,000 in fines for skipping those three days of practice, but at this point it seems a given he’ll take that hit, along with the $500,000 workout bonus he’s forfeiting by skipping OTAs.
No, the next key date is the start of training camp, which will be July 27. That’s when we’ll start getting a sense for how serious Rodgers really is about not playing for the Packers again. The fines for camp are $50,000 a day, with the fine for missing a preseason game escalating to a regular-season paycheck. In Rodgers’ case, each preseason game he skips as a holdout would cost him about $860,000.
Keep in mind, too, the CBA the players signed last year mandates those fines. The Packers can’t rescind them as inducement to show up.
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Is Rodgers willing to take those financial hits? And after that, is he willing to skip regular-season paychecks?
For most of the last month, I’ve been 60-40 that Rodgers won’t be the Packers’ quarterback when they open the regular season. But that’s a wild guess. It's just as easy to question whether he’d really stay away when it’s time to play football for real, and with the chance to chase a Super Bowl to boot. Does his hostility for the Packers’ front office run that deep? We’ll see.
If that’s the decision Rodgers has to make in two months, Murphy and Gutekunst will have their own decision. If Rodgers sits out camp, then what’s best for the team? Continue waiting him out and recouping signing-bonus money if he doesn’t return? If he does return, assume that his discontent won’t filter through the locker room? Or at some point in camp decide to make the best trade possible while Rodgers’ value at age 37 is as high as it’s going to be?
The problem with a trade is, it will be hard for the Packers to get enough value in return. Top-five quarterbacks are the rarest asset in the NFL. They’re hard to put a price on.
I’ve asked three front-office executives to valuate Rodgers' trade value, and two first-round picks was the starting point, a good player likely, and maybe another high pick (second-rounder?) also could be in play.
If the Packers were to get multiple first-rounders for Rodgers, they’d likely be picks in the latter half of Round 1 because his new team is going to win. Picks that late in the first round aren’t nearly as valuable as those in the top 10. So if you’re talking about using those picks on players, there’s not a lot of value there, whether it’s two or three of them.
But if you view them as trade capital to move into the top five, they look better. If the Packers weren’t sold on Love in a year or two, they’d have ammunition to move up for a quarterback in the ’22 or even ’23 drafts.
No doubt the Packers should do everything they can to convince Rodgers to return willingly. With him, they’re a bona fide Super Bowl contender the next couple years. Without him, they’re not. It’s that simple.
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But if Rodgers really is willing to blow up the whole thing despite the Packers’ concessions, then maybe the best thing for the team come August or September will be to get the best deal possible while it can. Though that’s not the outcome to seek, it at least might leave open the team’s quarterback options in the next couple drafts.
Regardless, the question today is the same as it was when news of Rodgers’ discontent broke at the draft. That is, how far will he go to get out?
The reason I’ve been 60-40 he won’t be back is I’m not sure he’ll ever be appeased. If the Murphy/Gutekunst/Matt LaFleur trips to California plus the kind of contract assurance Rodgers was looking for at the start of the offseason aren’t enough now, when will they be?
As for firing Gutekunst, if that’s what Rodgers wants, that’s a non-starter for Murphy. No player can dictate who’s the GM. That would send the worst message of all to the locker room. And say what you will about Gutekunst’s mistakes in this matter, he has put together a roster around Rodgers that contended for a Super Bowl last season and figures to this year as well.
But maybe the reality of the big fines in training camp and missing football when it matters will convince Rodgers it’s OK to work for a GM he can’t stand. Many of us have had top bosses we didn’t like, but that didn’t stop us from showing up and playing to win. Then again, who among us has the clout of an MVP quarterback averaging $30 million-plus a year?
Rodgers’ interview with Mayne cleared up exactly nothing. It’s the hard deadline of the start of training camp that will reveal where he and the Packers stand.