Why Packers should see what they can get in an Aaron Rodgers trade | Opinion
GREEN BAY - The Green Bay Packers should make a good run at trading Aaron Rodgers even if he’s open to staying on.
Yes, coach Matt LaFleur, general manager Brian Gutekunst and CEO Mark Murphy have good reason to want Rodgers back. Rodgers is about to win his fourth MVP on Thursday night and even at age 38 looks like he has several excellent years left in him if he wants to keep playing.
With him, the Packers are almost guaranteed of winning 10 to 13 games each season and getting into the playoffs.
But Rodgers is also in the home stretch of his career, and even with him the Packers have gone 11 years without a return to the Super Bowl. Another home playoff flame-out as the NFC’s No. 1 seed, and Rodgers’ poor performance in that game, are hard to brush aside.
The time is right for the Packers to get the most they can while they can by moving him to a team where he wants to play. And the best looking potential trade partner is probably the Denver Broncos, a quarterback-starved franchise whose new coach, Nathaniel Hackett, was the Packers' offensive coordinator and Rodgers' confidant the last three years.
The Broncos can offer the most valuable commodity, a high first-round pick, the No. 9 selection overall in this year’s draft. Top-10 picks are like gold. If they offered it, a second-rounder, and a first-rounder in 2023, that would be awfully hard to turn down.
“I’d take the draft picks and roll with it,” said a high-ranking executive from another NFL team, speaking to the Paste BN Network on condition of anonymity for competitive reasons, who predicted the Packers can get two first-rounders and a second for their quarterback.
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Said another scout in the league, speaking to the Paste BN Network on condition of anonymity for competitive reasons: “I do the deal. I just think it’s run the course. I don’t want to keep running it back, and yeah we’re winning games, (but) the losing in the playoffs gets so hard. If you’re losing and you’re the No. 1 seed, it’s happened a couple times now, and that’s with him at quarterback. So I bite the bullet, take the pick at (No.) 9, and take the pick next year. I just think you have to go for it.”
To be sure, trading Rodgers is risky and not something everyone in the league would do. Immediately after the Packers lost to the 49ers in the divisional round of the playoffs three weeks ago, it was hard not to think that if they took an early playoff exit this season, with another No. 1 seeding and a more mature team than in 2020, then it’s time for both sides to move on.
But many executives and coaches look at what gives them the best chance to compete for a title in the here and now, hoping good health and some breaks get them over the top from there. Rodgers is a sure bet to at least give the Packers a chance for two or three more years.
If the Packers trade him, they also might fall into the great quarterback abyss. Thirty years of Hall of Fame play at that position make it easy to forget what life is like on the other side of the divide. Unless you followed the Packers in the 1970s and ‘80s, it’s hard to appreciate how bad things can get. Twenty lean years passed between Bart Starr and Brett Favre, and it could be another 20 between Rodgers and the Packers’ next keeper at that position. Maybe more.
“Probably keep him,” said an executive with a third team, speaking to the Paste BN Network on condition of anonymity for competitive reasons. “That’s tough, to not know where they stand on (Jordan) Love. I think they need to find a quarterback of the future. It doesn’t look like it’s Love to me.”
But even with the risk of entering the quarterback great unknown, there’s a good reason for Gutekunst to trade Rodgers. Gutekunst needs to look out for the future of the franchise, and if he can cut a good deal it essentially would give him two cracks at finding his quarterback in the next two years.
Love would get first shot. It’s true Love didn’t do much to catch the eye in his one start this season, at Kansas City, or his second-half showing in the regular-season finale at Detroit. Unless he has looked like a much different player in practice, Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur have to have reservations about whether he’s the answer.
But it’s worth pointing out, you could have said the same about Rodgers at the same stage in his career. In Rodgers’ most extended playing time in his second season, game 10 against New England, he played most of the second half after Favre sustained an elbow injury and finished 4-for-12 for 32 yards passing plus a lost fumble on a strip sack. Rodgers finished that game playing on a broken foot, but he had a horrible day from beginning to end.
So it’s still too early to write off Love. He has several qualities you look for in an NFL passer – good size, plenty of arm strength, decent athleticism and a willingness to play from the pocket. The question is whether he can play fast enough to be a winning quarterback in the league. The Packers will need a season’s worth of games to find that out.
And if the Packers decide after the 2022 season that Love isn’t the answer, then trading Rodgers sets them up for another quarterback run in the 2023 draft.
For one thing, if Love isn’t good enough, they’ll have a bad record, probably in the four- to six-win range. That lands them in the top 10 of the ’23 draft. An extra first-rounder in ’23 is more ammo to move into the top five of the draft.
In the 2021 draft, for instance, the 49ers jumped from No. 12 to No. 3 overall by trading two first-rounders (in 2022 and ’23) and a third-rounder (’23). In 2016 the Eagles moved from No. 8 overall to No. 2 for a future first-rounder (2017) and picks in the second, third and fourth rounds. So that extra first-rounder in ’23 will be worth more as trade capital than as a pick to keep and use.
A trade with Denver is appealing because the Broncos have a top-10 pick. The draft is a crapshoot no matter where you’re picking, but odds of finding a difference maker inside the top 10 are a lot better than outside.
“At No. 9 you’re in a great position to grab an offensive lineman,” said one of the scouts. “Absolutely you could get a pass rusher. The board would look good to you at 9. If you don’t want to draft a quarterback, that’s fine. You could get one of those wide receivers.”
This year’s draft class looks weak at quarterback, but ’23 has the makings of a much better class to go quarterback hunting, assuming Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud and Alabama’s Bryce Young leave college early.
“Next year’s quarterback class is way better than this year’s,” one of the scouts said.
Denver isn’t the only potential trading partner out there for the Packers. Tennessee, Indianapolis, Las Vegas and Miami, among others, might show interest.
But the Broncos probably could offer the best deal. And if they do, the Packers should take it.