By Scott Kacsmar
With the quarterback dominos starting to fall in place, Aaron Rodgers remains one of the most interesting puzzle pieces for the 2023 NFL season.
Does Rodgers return to Green Bay for a 19th season, does he follow in Brett Favre’s steps (minus the Crocs) and go to the New York Jets, or does he call it a career and live off grid in a cabin in Montana?
We know the New Orleans Saints (Derek Carr), Seattle Seahawks (Geno Smith), and New York Giants (Daniel Jones) are off the market for Rodgers after making big quarterback moves this week, but there are other teams who will certainly be interested in his decision.
Rodgers stands to make just south of $32 million for the 2023 season, so the team who takes him on will have to find a way to fit his contract on the books. But when it comes to a first-ballot Hall of Famer at the most important position, there will always be a market.
But which move makes the most sense for the quarterback who will turn 40 in December? We look at the best options for the last quarterback standing from his golden era.
Green Bay Packers: Until the Bitter End?
All reports seem to indicate that the Packers are willing to welcome Rodgers back or allow him to seek a trade, putting the decision in his hands.
If Rodgers returns, he will try to improve on a 2022 season where the offense struggled to replace the trade of No. 1 receiver Davante Adams:
- In 2022, Rodgers averaged a career-low 217.4 passing yards per game.
- Rodgers has gone 22 straight games without 300 yards passing, the longest streak of his career by eight games.
- Rodgers has not passed for 240 yards in his last eight games, which is double the longest streak of his career.
- Rodgers did not throw multiple touchdowns in his last five games, the longest streak of his career.
- Rodgers’ 12 interceptions were his most since his first season as a starter when he threw 13 interceptions in 2008.
- Rodgers set his career low in passer rating (91.1), QBR (39.3; ranked No. 26), and he averaged under 7.0 yards per attempt (6.8) for just the second time in his career.
The other season where Rodgers was under 7.0 yards per attempt was 2015 (6.7), the year where Jordy Nelson tore his ACL in the preseason and the Packers had to scramble at receiver.
But there does seem to be a pattern here as Rodgers’ two worst statistical seasons (2015 and 2022) were the ones where his WR1 was in disarray. Last season, the Packers had a very hard time keeping their receivers healthy for Rodgers.
Rookie Romeo Doubs shined early, then he was injured one snap into the Week 9 loss in Detroit, and things were never the same for him. Rookie Christian Watson was a big-play threat in the second half of the season with eight touchdowns in a four-game stretch, but he was held scoreless in the last month. He also had just eight games where he played more than 40% of the offensive snaps as staying healthy was an issue.
Rodgers himself was not all that healthy in 2022. He had a broken thumb injury that started in Week 5, which was the beginning of the 5-game losing streak after a 3-1 start. Rodgers also left the Philadelphia loss with a rib injury in Week 12 before returning to help the team win four straight before a bad home loss to the Lions with Rodgers’ last pass of the season being a desperation interception.
If Rodgers comes back, the team will look a little different too.
Wide receiver Allen Lazard led the team with 60 catches and 788 yards, but he could be leaving Green Bay in free agency. Longtime teammate Randall Cobb and No. 1 tight end Robert Tonyan are also unrestricted free agents for the Packers.
We know that is a time of year where the Packers do very little to add pieces for Rodgers, and the wide receiver market does not look that enticing anyway this year. The draft is always an option, but everyone knows by now that the Packers have not drafted a wide receiver or tight end in the first round since 2002.
If staying with the team you’ve spent almost half your life with is akin to showing love for your family or being in a marriage, well, that may not be a big selling point for Rodgers. He may be ready to spread his wings and explore other options while he still can play.
New York Jets: Grass Is Always Greener?
What do the New York Jets and Aaron Rodgers have in common? The 2010 season was their last long playoff run. Rodgers won the only Super Bowl appearance of his career, and the Jets lost 24-19 in the 2010 AFC Championship Game, their last playoff game.
That was eons ago, but maybe this is the right time for Rodgers to switch conferences and join a solid team that is badly in need of a quarterback. It would only be so fitting for Rodgers to follow in Brett Favre’s footsteps 15 years later and go from the Packers to the Jets.
The thought now is that Favre failed in his 2008 season with the Jets, but that team was 8-3 with a win over the 10-0 Titans before Favre injured his throwing arm, threw a bunch of picks, and finished 9-7 to miss the playoffs.
Something admirable about Rodgers late in his career is that since 2018, he has only missed one game due to injury, and that was thanks to him not getting a COVID vaccine in 2021. He may not be as durable as Favre, but he has been durable as an older quarterback.
As much as it would be a strange coincidence of Rodgers following Favre’s path to New York, the Jets needing a quarterback is a tale as old as time. You could go back 45 seasons and more often than not, the Jets needed an upgrade at quarterback.
This one is especially clear with Zach Wilson being a poor leader in addition to being awful at playing quarterback in the NFL. Mike White has been a nice story, but his small frame makes it unsustainable for him to drop back 40 to 50 times a week as he has in his brief career. He has already been injured multiple times in the last two years.
But Robert Saleh’s coaching staff clearly does not trust Wilson in this offense as they always let the other quarterbacks (White, Joe Flacco, Josh Johnson) throw the ball more when they are in the game.
Of course they are going to trust Rodgers, but it is not like he needs to throw for 5,000 yards in this offense. The Jets absolutely nailed their 2022 draft with the Offensive Rookie of the Year (wide receiver Garrett Wilson) and the Defensive Rookie of the Year (corner Sauce Gardner). If Wilson did not win OROY, then it may have been running back Breece Hall had he not tore his ACL when he did. A week before his injury, Hall rushed for a career-high 116 yards against Rodgers’ Packers in a 27-10 win, one of the worst home losses of Rodgers’ career. Hall should be back early this season.
Rodgers would have weapons and give the Jets legitimacy on the offensive side. Even in 2022 with Green Bay, arguably his worst season, he still helped the Packers to a No. 9 ranking in yards per drive and No. 14 in points per drive.
The Jets also hired Nathaniel Hackett to be offensive coordinator in 2023. While Hackett failed miserably as Denver’s head coach, some coaches are just cut out to be coordinators only. While in Green Bay, Hackett coordinated an offense that saw Rodgers win back-to-back MVP awards in 2020-21. That connection will work out.
While defensive success can be hard to sustain in the NFL, Rodgers could be playing with his best unit in years on that side of the ball. The 2022 Jets finished No. 6 in yards per drive allowed and No. 2 in points per drive allowed. That is what the offense, mostly led by Wilson, squandered last year as the Jets (7-10) were just 6-5 when they allowed fewer than 21 points. Rodgers has lost five such games in the last seven seasons combined (42-5 record when Packers allowed under 21 points since 2016).
The ”Rodgers never gets to throw to a first-round pick at wide receiver” argument would be crushed with Wilson, a very fine receiver who excelled with three different quarterbacks last year. But that has always been misguided in Green Bay. The weapons were not the issue – it was the defense.
In 15 seasons as a starter in Green Bay (2008-22), Rodgers had just two defenses that ranked in the top quarter of the league in points per drive allowed. The 2009 unit was No. 8 before allowing 45 points in regulation to the Cardinals in the wild card round. The 2010 defense was No. 2 and Rodgers won the Super Bowl that year with the defense shining in the postseason too.
Every other defense has ranked 10th or worse with an average ranking of 17.9 in a league of 32. The Packers have only finished in the top half of the league on defense in one of the last seven seasons, and that was a No. 10 ranking in 2019, the year San Francisco scored 37 points in the NFC Championship Game as Raheem Mostert rushed for 220 yards and four touchdowns.
While the AFC is absolutely loaded with quarterback talent, and the Bills will still likely be favored to win the AFC East, it is still worth pursuing this move for both parties. Rodgers could have his best defense since 2010.
The Jets could have their best quarterback since Joe Namath was filming pantyhose commercials in the 1970s. Maybe Rodgers will even bring back the Fu Manchu mustache and fur coat to honor Namath.
Admit it, you want this.
Las Vegas Raiders: For the Love of Davante?
A very intriguing choice would be the Raiders, reuniting Rodgers with Davante Adams, his favorite receiver from Green Bay. Adams just led the NFL with 14 touchdown catches without Rodgers, and Josh Jacobs won the rushing title for a team that underachieved (6-11) by blowing six fourth-quarter leads.
The Raiders could certainly be a team on the rise in 2023 as they played better than their record showed, but how high is the ceiling when the division has Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs, Justin Herbert and the Chargers, and Sean Payton is trying to fix Russell Wilson in Denver?
In the end, Rodgers with some weapons having to overcome a bad defense with very questionable coaching sounds like way too many Green Bay seasons of the past. This one would even have Adams in it again. It does not sound like a championship formula, and Josh McDaniels may be way too big of a control freak to let Rodgers run this ship. McDaniels jettisoned Jay Cutler and Derek Carr out of their respective teams his first years in Denver and Las Vegas.
Rodgers is not going to mesh well with a coach like that.
The NFC South: The Easiest Path to a Home Playoff Game?
If you are Green Bay, you should prefer to move Rodgers to the quarterback-loaded AFC instead of keeping him in the NFC, possibly taking a playoff spot away from you. But if you are Rodgers, the NFC South could look enticing as the easiest path to a home playoff game via division title after the Buccaneers won it with an 8-9 record last year.
Sure, Derek Carr just went to the Saints, but that does not move the needle much for 2023. The Buccaneers would probably be a bad spot for Rodgers as that team looks like a sinking ship, and the run-run-and-run-some-more Falcons may not be the right fit for his abilities.
The Panthers would be an excellent choice for a capable quarterback, but new head coach Frank Reich is probably focused on getting a rookie quarterback in the draft after getting burned by one-and-done years for Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz, and Matt Ryan in Indy. Still, it would be something to see Rodgers with D.J. Moore, a running game, a decent defense, and a home game against Green Bay to come this year.
But even if Rodgers wanted the NFC South, the Packers and the best teams there may not want him in it.
Washington Commanders: The Over the Hill Gang Returns?
We’ll know Rodgers is washed up if he ends up in Washington.
If any franchise is known for overpaying veterans past their prime, it is the Washington Football Team. This team was the original Over the Hill Gang in the George Allen era, and Hall of Fame coach Joe Gibbs was also fond of having a maximum amount of experienced players. When Daniel Snyder bought the team, they were infamous spenders in free agency, winning paper Super Bowls in March and lucky to go 8-8 in the real games that count.
Washington no doubt could use a shot in the arm with Carson Wentz predictably failing and talks of Sam Howell being the Week 1 starter in 2023. Rodgers would enjoy throwing to Terry McLaurin and the other wideouts, but he would be a tough fit in Washington’s cap structure. The move could look desperate for head coach Ron Rivera to keep his job another year.
You cannot rule out Washington from trying to make a bold move, but this seems like an unlikely spot.
New England Patriots: Egos Collide?
Back in 2018, Tom Brady reportedly told an NFL coach that Aaron Rodgers would rewrite the record books if he played in the Patriots’ offensive system with the coaching staff’s knowledge of opposing defenses. “He’d throw for 7,000 yards every year. He’s so much more talented than me,” Brady said according to ESPN.
Well, the Patriots did not get 4,000 yards passing from their quarterbacks in 2022, so an upgrade does look necessary with Mac Jones’ sophomore slump. The delicious pairing of Bill Belichick and Rodgers would have been something a few years ago, but now, it just seems like it would be too much of an ego clash with how outspoken Rodgers has become in recent years. The pressure to win something immediately with Belichick as a comparison to Brady would also be very high, and it is not like Rodgers is walking into an instant contender with all the talent loss in New England in recent years.
Alas, we can only think about that Brady quote and what could have been if Rodgers was getting consistently great starting field position with a balanced offense, top scoring defense, and elite special teams like the Patriots supplied Brady with all those years.
Other: Darkness Retreats or 2024 Libertarian Candidate?
Rodgers emerged from his darkness retreat, claimed he saw his shadow, and thinks he has six more seasons in him to beat Brady’s career length.
But the reality is Rodgers coming out of that darkness retreat and not announcing retirement already makes it unlikely we have seen the last of him in the NFL. He stands to gain so much financially from resuming his playing career, and his physical skills still looked to be in starter form in 2022. The health was not always there, and that is always a concern with the older a quarterback gets, but Rodgers still looks capable of playing the game at an adequate level to win games.
Rodgers would probably get more votes than Kanye West in a 2024 presidential run, but the idea of him doing more TV ads, interviews, and podcast appearances is frankly too exhausting to even think about. Let’s hope he sticks to football.
Conclusion: Rodgers Should Follow Favre
Here is what Rodgers said in his appearance on the Pat McAfee Show in January: “I think I can win MVP again in the right situation. Right situation, is that Green Bay or is that somewhere else? I’m not sure, but I don’t think you should shut down any opportunity.”
A fifth MVP would tie Rodgers with Peyton Manning for the most in NFL history. After seeing what a late-career team change did for Favre (2009 Vikings), Manning (2012 Broncos), and Brady (2020 Buccaneers), Rodgers probably would relish a golden opportunity to do something great away from Green Bay.
Could that right situation be the Jets? Rodgers and the team have been in talks this week. The AFC is the tougher conference, but if you can get through that gauntlet to the Super Bowl, then you have a great chance of winning it all.
We know Rodgers can survive the New York media. He has been living his best 1997-98 Shawn Michaels life with this recent heel turn that has alienated some fans. A new team makes perfect sense for him.
As the band Interpol once wrote:
I know you’ve supported me for a long time
Somehow, I’m not impressed
But New York cares (got to be some more change in my life)
New York cares (got to be some more change in my life)
In an entertainment world full of sequels and reboots, why not another round of the Green Bay legend going to the Jets? It could not go any worse than New York-inspired sequels Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, or Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan.
No matter what he chooses, we know Rodgers will remain the center of attention.
