| In today’s FOX Sports Insider: Even if the Packers’ plan for the future makes sense, they’ve created a headache for themselves at QB … we look at an incredible collection of Michael Jordan stories before Night Two of “The Last Dance” … and with Chase Young now an NFL player, the Defensive Rookie of the Year race is officially on. The first day of the NFL Draft is in the books. The Cincinnati Bengals surprised no one by taking Joe Burrow first, Tua Tagovailoa avoided a painful slide, five offensive tackles got picked in the first 18 spots and now, on the clock, is … Aaron Rodgers. That’s right; the Green Bay Packers quarterback received the ultimate notice deep into Thursday evening that his organization has at least one eye firmly on a future beyond his Hall of Fame career. |
Despite Rodgers taking the Packers to within one game of the Super Bowl last season, general manager Brian Gutekunst opted not to go get him some immediate high-draft help at wide receiver, or strengthen the defense, or procure a lineman to protect Green Bay’s star QB. Instead, the Packers traded up from No. 30 to No. 26, dropping a fourth round pick to the Miami Dolphins in the process, and selected QB Jordan Love from Utah State, with the intention of grooming him into Rodgers’ heir apparent. To be sure, the clock Rodgers is on is a long one. He has four years remaining on his contract, and Green Bay will be more than happy for him to play them out at Lambeau. Love is a prolonged project that they hope will also serve as a medium-term safety net, should Rodgers suffer injury or even decide to call time on his career early.  “I haven’t connected with Aaron yet,” Gutekunst told reporters. “He’s obviously been through this, and he’s a pro, and I think it’s something that’s a long-term decision. I think that when you go through kind of the way things went tonight, you weigh the short-term and the long-term and the way the board went, this was just the best decision for the Packers. Obviously, Aaron has been around a long time, and he knows what we’re playing for right now.” Green Bay hasn’t thrust Rodgers into a QB competition. This has much in common with when Rodgers himself was chosen 15 years ago and sat and learned behind Brett Favre for three seasons. Love is 21 and knows his role – and the potential value in it. “I am [excited], already knowing that I can learn a lot from Aaron Rodgers,” Love told ESPN. “That’s one of the GOATS right there in the game. I am excited to come back behind him and learn as much as I can.” It is a move that can be made sense of, in that it is designed to shore up the future at the most important position on the field. And yet, there will be the gnawing sense among the Packers faithful that opportunity is slipping through their fingers. One Super Bowl appearance, the 2010 season triumph, is all there is to show from the Rodgers era. They have been a permanent contender and have missed the playoffs just twice since 2008, yet greatness is measured differently in Wisconsin — and if Rodgers’ window is not slamming shut, it is at least tightening. Given how close the Packers got last time around, as he threw for 4,002 yards with 26 touchdowns and only four interceptions, there was a communal hankering to go all in on building now. Help could still be coming, of course. If the Packers have their eye on a receiver, they may feel good about the possibility of him still being available at the end of the second round. Regardless, the optics don’t look great, and Rodgers may not be best pleased right now — especially since he stated recently that he would enjoy seeing a skill position player selected in the first round. Another QB probably wasn’t what he had in mind. “What an absolute slap in the face to Aaron Rodgers,” FOX Sports’ Nick Wright said on First Things First. “Instead of saying, ‘How can we get past San Francisco?’, you are planning for the future? You are trading up to draft a player who you hope desperately, doesn’t play a single snap in 2020 or 2021? It is the definition of focusing on making sure you never fall off a cliff, rather than focusing on trying to win a championship now.” Rodgers is still one of the very best to have played the position, one of the league’s biggest stars and with a contract worth $134 million over four years. He almost certainly doesn’t want our sympathy, and it may turn out that there is no need for it. He is so established in place, that a future without him is unthinkable for many Packers loyalists. But the front office, we just learned, are well and truly thinking about it. Rodgers just got a reminder that football is a tough business, and that the draft is a complex beast. Here’s what others have said … Peter King, NBC Sports: “I’ll tell you what Rodgers thinks: he’s pissed off. Wouldn’t you be? You realize that when the Green Bay Packers have been sitting there for the last four drafts and Aaron Rodgers said, ‘Give me a weapon, give me a weapon, get me some receivers,’ and the Packers have never, unless you consider Ty Montgomery, who was switched to running back after being a college receiver at Stanford, they have not picked a wide receiver in the top 100 picks in the last four drafts. But, I don’t know, if I am Aaron Rodgers — and I am on record, he told me this, he said, ‘I will play until I am 40 as long as I still have my legs.’ Well, he looks to be in great shape. He always keeps himself in great shape in the offseason. That would mean he wants to play another four seasons, at least. If that is the case, he probably is going to play his last year, his last two or three years, somewhere else, because it is clear now that Jordan Love is the quarterback of the future in Green Bay.” Jay Glazer, FOX Sports: “Here’s my issue with this: they were one game away from the Super Bowl last year. They were one game away from the Super Bowl, and they draft somebody for, we don’t know how many years down the road. They didn’t give Aaron Rodgers another weapon, they gave him a headache. They gave him … competition? Is it competition? This was the biggest surprise of the first round, but they didn’t snow anybody on it. It was out there, we just didn’t believe it. And they traded up for this! I’m not speechless very often, and I am right now. You didn’t help your team get from one game away to zero games away from the Super Bowl. You caused a lot more questions when people are already questioning the relationship of the head coach and Aaron Rodgers.” Jason La Canfora, CBS Sports: “You don’t make a move this bold, when a starting quarterback as good as Rodgers is already starved for skill position talent in a generational wide receiver draft, without having every intention of Love getting his shot in two years. That’s when it becomes easy to get out of Rodgers’ contract, and that’s when, even if Love still looks like a project, he is going to play – because you don’t take this gamble only to admit defeat without playing Love quite a bit just in case you were actually right. Of course, no one knows this better than Rodgers himself. He’s cerebral and calculated, almost to a fault, and he’s lived through the other side of this already when he slid down draft boards 15 years ago to eventually replace Favre. Problem is, Love ain’t Rodgers, and Love didn’t slide.” |
