Rodgers Finds Possible Trade Talks ‘Interesting’
GREEN BAY, Wis. – A franchise-shifting chain of events between Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers could start unfolding in a couple weeks.
Speaking during his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on Tuesday from Monterey, Calif., home to this week’s Pebble Beach Pro-Am golf tournament, Rodgers said a decision on his NFL playing future could be coming sooner than later.
“You have to get away from the emotion of it,” Rodgers said. “That’s why I always think you can’t make a decision until after the Super Bowl, at the earliest, because there’s still football going on, No. 1. No. 2, I ain’t about me. It’s about the Chiefs and the Eagles still playing and the great seasons they’ve had.”
The Packers are coming off an 8-9 season, the 12th in a row that fell short of reaching the Super Bowl. At age 39, Rodgers has to decide if he wants to gear up for another season. If he does, both quarterback and franchise have to decide if they can get back to the Super Bowl together. It’s possible both sides will decide a fresh start is in their best interests.
On Sunday, ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter reported that the Packers could look to trade the four-time MVP quarterback and longtime face of the franchise.
Wrote Schefter: “A scenario that once seemed unthinkable, a Rodgers trade could be driven by financial reasons, the state of the Packers franchise and ultimately the feelings of the team and the star quarterback.
“League sources believe the franchise prefers to move on from Rodgers, just as it once did with Brett Favre. Those sources also believe that Rodgers is well aware of the Packers’ feelings on the situation.”
Rodgers wasn’t asked specifically about that report. But, when asked by McAfee about the upcoming chain of events – once he makes his decision, he’ll tell the team what he’s thinking and then team will tell him what it’s thinking – Rodgers said, “It sounds like there’s already conversations going on that aren’t involving me, which are interesting. … I’m not a part of those conversations right now.”
Rodgers said the decision on his football-playing future hasn’t been at the forefront of his thoughts. He did watch the conference championship games – a game he’s been on the losing end of four times since winning the Super Bowl in 2010, including in 2019 and 2020.
“You watch that game, you let your mind drift off to what it would be like to still be playing and all those thoughts come back to you,” Rodgers said.
But not for long.
“And then you come up to Pebble Beach and you’re like, ‘This part of life’s pretty amazing’ doing things like this more often,” he continued. “Look, it’s going to be a little bit more time for my decision. I feel confident that in a couple weeks I’ll feel definitely more strongly about one of the two decisions.”
Part of the process will be going through his in-season journaling and looking at “the tone” of his writings.
“I think you’ve got of cognizant of what was going through your mind during the season,” he said. “Did you enjoy the grind as much? Did you enjoy practice? Did you enjoy the meeting time? Did you enjoy the routine? And not forget about those feelings and make an emotional response either way. I think that’s important.
"Listen, I’ll answer the questions that you give me but it’s not something that’s on my mind 24/7, and it’s not on my mind that much at all to be honest. It’s settling into this part of the end of January and February and contemplating my life for the next few months and then trying to see if football fits into that.”
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