The quarterback aired his grievances, which had only been hinted at, making clear the chasm that needs to be closed for him to re-sign with the Green Bay Packers.
Aaron Rodgers’s summer of discontent ended on Tuesday when he reported to the Green Bay Packers’ training camp, bringing to a close the months of retirement whispers, trade speculation and answers in the form of questions. Photos from the team’s social media account showed Rodgers arriving wearing tinted sunglasses, slicked-back hair and a rigid grin. He looked like Bono approaching the red carpet for the iHeartRadio Music Awards. Rodgers may not be enthusiastic to be back, but he is back nonetheless.
Rodgers aired grievances against the Packers during a stunning news conference on Wednesday. “I just expressed my desire to be more involved in conversations directly affecting my job,” he said, explaining that he wanted more of a say in the team’s personnel decisions.
He also criticized the team for roster decisions, several of which dated back many years. He also said he sought reassurance that he was not a “lame duck” quarterback. He acknowledged that the Packers “tried to throw some money” at him with an off-season contract extension but that money was never the issue.
At times, Rodgers sounded more like a lawyer giving an opening argument in a lawsuit than a player delivering a “welcome back to football” pep talk. Packers brass could not have been thrilled to hear its most important employee adjudicating past transactions to the news media on the second day of training camp.
Before his address on Wednesday, his long list of prior complaints, including the team’s decision to draft his would-be successor Jordan Love in 2020, in-game decisions and years of feuds with past and present coaches, could only be intuited through reported rumors. Rodgers spent the off-season guest-hosting “Jeopardy!,” golfing in charity tournaments and dropping broad hints about his dissatisfaction while never directly demanding a trade or a new contract.
But Rodgers, the N.F.L.’s reigning most valuable player and a three-time All-Pro, had no other team that could meet his lofty standards. There was no executive bold enough, no owner wealthy enough, no coach brilliant enough and no roster talented enough to accommodate him.
Rodgers found himself without leverage when it turned out that no playoff-caliber team had $37 million in salary cap space and multiple future first-round draft picks just lying around. Those who might be tempted to tie their budgets in knots for Rodgers — the Denver Broncos and the Las Vegas Raiders topped a shortlist of theoretical suitors — may well have been scared off by Rodgers’s increasingly justified reputation for stoking melodrama.
He could not even hold out from training camp the way disgruntled N.F.L. veterans have done for decades. The current collective bargaining agreement penalizes holdouts by docking players both $50,000 per day (a penalty that can no longer be waived upon arrival) and an accrued season toward free agency. Had Rodgers stayed home this week, he risked allowing the Packers to control his rights for an additional year. That, it is safe to assume, would be the last thing he wanted.
Rodgers and the Packers finalized the terms of a reworked contract on Thursday. The Packers tore off the back end of his contract, which was scheduled to expire after the 2023 season, and removed forfeiture provisions regarding the prorated portion of Rodgers’ signing bonus. The Packers also acquired Randall Cobb, their former wide receiver and a confidant of Rodgers’s, from the Houston Texans on Wednesday, reversing one of the roster moves Rodgers had criticized. Cobb does not appear to fill a roster need, but he does give Rodgers a sympathetic ear to gripe into on team flights.
No matter how firmly they fix their smiles, the Packers and Rodgers are a couple planning to divorce the moment the children move out, a classic rock act pretending to get along until the end of its farewell tour.
Rodgers may have watched James Harden force a four-way blockbuster N.B.A. trade in January and thought that he could do the same thing. Unfortunately, everything, from the N.F.L.’s hard salary cap to the difference in the leagues’ cultures, makes such trades nearly impossible in football. Superstars rule the N.B.A., but even the greatest quarterbacks are mere commodities to the pro football industrial complex.
Rodgers may also have coveted what Tom Brady enjoyed last year: a relatively clean break from his longtime employer, a hero’s welcome in a new city and an I-told-you-so championship run. But Brady allowed his contract to expire as he grew disenchanted with the New England Patriots, then dictated his own terms as a free agent. Brady shrewdly bided his time and manipulated circumstances in his favor; Rodgers grew frustrated and tried to force a miracle. Their contract machinations mirrored their playing styles.
Whatever his objective may have been, Rodgers came up short: no new team, no new money. Just a shortened contract and some play dates with an old pal. The Packers, meanwhile, appeased fans and teammates by coaxing Rodgers back to the table (contract negotiations with the All-Pro wide receiver Davante Adams grew touchy in Rodgers’s absence), but now must worry that their most important player will again hold his breath until he turns blue the next time he doesn’t get what he wants.
It’s hard to imagine that this strained union will result in a championship. Rodgers’s brilliance will yield plenty of wins, even if he’s gritting his teeth through the whole experience. But chemistry, communication and camaraderie really do matter in the N.F.L. If Rodgers, his teammates and his coaches lack faith or trust in one another at a critical moment in the playoffs, their season is likely to end in frustration, hurt feelings and bruised egos.
That’s how most Packers seasons have ended with Rodgers at quarterback in the last decade. At least both sides now know that this year will probably be the last time.
Source: Football - nytimes.com
