Aaron Rodgers only delaying the inevitable with his "self-love" games

 

As a long-time Packer fan, you have to take what life gives you, and for some time now that is having to tolerate a narcissist as the "face" of the franchise. I mean Aaron Rodgers told us much when he went on his trip to Peru a few years ago and consumed the hallucinogenic drink Ayahuasca. What did it do for him? It cleared his mind of outside interference and allowed him to achieve the most important thing in life—not being all he can be, like a Super Bowl champion, but being consumed with “self-love.” Isn’t that the definition of narcissism?

Supposedly taking this drug helped Rodgers have his second-best season statistically and his third MVP award after four of the previous five seasons having a passer rating in the 90s after six-straight in the 100s. All this proved was that Rodgers had to get his “mind” right to play well—and if it wasn’t, like in the final years of McCarthy era—Rodgers just did his own thing, didn’t listen to anything but his own tune, and it was everyone else’s fault if his play on the field looked it. And it looked it in 2022; he was going to play with an injured thumb no matter how much it hurt the team’s chances to win just to keep Jordan Love off the field (admittedly Brett Favre was probably doing the same thing to him).

Meanwhile, Rodgers went to Oregon in February on what he called a “darkness retreat” to clear his mind of the cobwebs accumulated over a failed season that basically was the last best chance of the Packers of making it to the Super Bowl with Rodgers before the team imploded under the weight of pipe dreams and Rodgers’ cap hit; what has come out of the "retreat" is not “clarity” but more narcissistic, juvenile behavior, it seems. Ain’t it amazing how a fan can be so sick of a guy that the rest of the world thinks is the best quarterback “fundamentally” in the game? 

But the question about Rodgers to those closer to the action has always been about what is going on in his head, not his physical skills. It reminds me of what the late Chicago White Sox radio announcer Harry Caray said about another famous headcase of his time, Richie Allen: “Million dollar talent, zero dollar brain.”

The “drama” this season is whether Rodgers will say “yes” to an essentially completed trade agreement with the Jets, or is he going to retire or decide to mess things up by sticking around after Packer president Mark Murphy essentially said the Packers were now Jordan Love’s team. But to use a favorite line of Don Meredith’s on Monday Night Football, “the party’s over” in Green Bay, and if not the Jets, there might be another team interested in acquiring Rodgers. Mike Florio claimed he has sources suggesting the Packers may in fact be uncertain about the Jets' compensation package, and others believe if no deal is done or Rodgers balks, the Packers can wait until draft day to find a suitable trade partner.

The writing was on the wall since the 2020 off-season drama, but more acutely after Rodgers’ career worst passer rating and QBR, and seemingly deliberately sabotaging the season by insisting on playing with an injured thumb which saw the Packers lose 7 of 8 games and ending with the fourth losing season in the Rodgers era (Favre had one losing season with the Packers). 12 years has gone by since the Packers were in their last Super Bowl, subsequently losing four times in the NFC championship game. Yet Rodgers continued to be praised to high heaven by most of the “experts,” and most of the blame for failure was laid at the feet of management, coaches and teammates. Thus the reality is only fitting: Rodgers' last pass as a Packer—like that of Brett Favre—was a horrendous season-killing interception:

 

Enough is enough. Time to move on.  We are not talking about Tom Brady or Peyton Manning here, players who might have less “technical” talent, but whose minds were always in the “right place”—driven to win at all costs and accept nothing less. According to Pro Football Reference, Rodgers is tied for 19^th on the all-time list for game-winning drives—behind such “Hall of Famers” as Vinnie Testaverde, Carson Palmer and Derek Carr (such were 33 of Carr’s 63 career wins).—with 31, barely half of the likes of Brady, Manning, Drew Brees and Ben Roethlisberger, who have 50+. Favre even had more (43). In fourth-quarter comebacks, it is more of the same, with Rodgers tied for 28^th, behind the likes of Jay Cutler, Tony Romo and Dave Krieg. 

That was the thing about Rodgers—his play might be “brilliant” in stretches, and yet be completely awful at critical times. And yet with Brady and Manning it was always when things looked their bleakest was when they were at their most dangerous.

So it is that Packer management is ready to move on for the team to move "forward," and so are most Packer fans, it seems. Fewer people are busting down doors demanding that the team hold on to Rodgers as they did when Favre “unretired.” I know that I was personally offended by management’s desire to move on from Favre, and I continued to follow his career even after he joined the Vikings. But I don’t feel that way about Rodgers, and it didn’t matter to me if he came back last season or not after all the juvenile games of the previous off-season; as it turned out, it didn’t matter as Rodgers had his worst season and the Packers failed to make the playoffs after three straight 13-win seasons.

I mean, if you are not able to get the team to the Super Bowl, then you are not really any different than the common run who make their teams no better than "competitive." There are a lot of quarterbacks who put up “great” numbers who don’t make it to the “promised” land, and if the “explanation” for going from his best season to worst had something to do with taking a psychedelic “self-help” drug, then we are entering territory that has no place on the football field. That isn’t to scare off the Jets from accepting a trade for him, since knowing Rodgers he might play better out of spite, if only for one season and then he is off to La-La Land again.

Unfortunately for both the Packers and the Jets it’s already started. On Monday the Packers and the Jets (yeah, I know, Favre “déjà vu”) supposedly had a deal in place that only required Rodgers’ to say “yes.” After claiming he was going to avoid the “drama” from last year and make a quick decision, here we are are back to drama mode again, with the Rodgers failing to announce a decision at noon eastern time on Monday, after which was the beginning of free agency and back to free agent free-for-all. 

Rodgers may not be a free agent, since he still has two years left on his Packer contract, but his delaying means that both the Jets and Packers are watching free agents slipping past them as they have no clarity on how much money they can spend. In the Jets’ case, they want to know if they are actually going to have a quarterback in the house. Some reports are now claiming that Rodgers won’t play for the Jets unless they agree to his “terms,” which apparently means importing three of his former teammates with the Packers (Allen Lazard, Randall Cobb, and Mercedes Lewis) and Odell Beckham Jr..

Is he serious? It seems the Jets at least hope he is as good as his “word,” since they have apparently come to an agreement with Lazard. But Michael Hurley on CBS Sports calls all of this “beyond the point of absurdity” and that “Still, all of this -- the conflicting reports, the confused teammates in Green Bay, the confused potential teammates in New Jersey, the wish list -- before he's even technically a part of the team? It's a lot. And in a league where a different quarterback from Green Bay used to manipulate teams and media to dedicate the bulk of their spring worrying about him, Rodgers is giving Brett Favre a run for his money in the realm of absurdly complex off-seasons.”

Is Rodgers trying to play this out as long as possible to stick it to the Packers, in particularly team president Murphy, who made it clear the team was prepared to move on from Rodgers now. But his game-playing also annoying the Jets, who were seeing other quarterback options fading away as free agency got underway, with Jimmy Garoppolo signed almost immediately with the Raiders, and the Jets losing their backup, Mike White, to the Dolphins.

Even more, does he enjoy making the national media look like fools playing his will-he-or-won’t he games? If Rodgers likes being a narcissistic villain, he is certainly doing a “good” job of it; after all, he’s into that “self-love” stuff. We are told that he will make an appearance on pal Pat McAfee's show on Wednesday, where we can expect him to make his "big reveal"--to accept the trade to the Jets or retire, more likely the former since the only thing he apparently loves as much as himself is money. 

It's all eye-roll stuff now for me; even if Rodgers wants to annoy the brass and return, that means the Packers will have to dump some high-priced players. Of course even if he is gone, the Packers still have to deal with the problem of Jordan Love, and hope that he is not Brett Hundley 2.0. However things pan out, it's going to be an interesting 2023 season.

Update: Rodgers appeared on the Pat McAfee show and asserted that he wants to play for the Jets, but the Packers want more in compensation despite the fact numerous sources claimed the "framework" of a deal with the Jets was already "done." This may be the case, but frankly Rodgers could have said this on Monday, and he clearly enjoys drawing out media speculation for his own amusement. It is still an open question if he has anything to "add" later even if there is a deal reached between the two teams.