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Aaron Rodgers doesn't think there's 'any reason why I wouldn't be back' with Packers, but admits, 'there's no absolutes in this business'
JASON WILDE
For the State Journal
GREEN BAY — Aaron Rodgers has a gift: the ability to answer a question truthfully, and in a way that placates those who are able to hear what they want to hear in his response — while still not clearly answering the question at hand.
As a result, the Green Bay Packers quarterback's weekly interview with The Pat McAfee Show on SiriusXM satellite radio's Mad Dog Radio was something of a Rorschach test for Packers fans Tuesday.
And the answer that would be parsed and dissected was this one:
"I don't think that there is any reason why I wouldn't be back," Rodgers said during the conversation with McAfee and Rodgers' former Packers teammate, A.J. Hawk. "But look, there's not many absolutes in this business. So, to make an absolute statement about something that is not an absolute, I didn't do it. And I guess that's why it went kind of nuts."
And the beauty in the 37-year-old Rodgers' response was that you could take it however you wanted to.
Rodgers was referring, of course, to his comments in the immediate aftermath of the Packers' 31-26 NFC Championship Game loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Lambeau Field on Sunday, a defeat that denied Rodgers a second trip to the Super Bowl a decade after he'd led the 2010 team — in his third year as the team's starting quarterback after succeeding Brett Favre — to the Super Bowl XLV title.
Following the loss, Rodgers lumped himself into a group of players who may not return next season — including running backs Aaron Jones and Jamaal Williams, center Corey Linsley and tight end Marcedes Lewis — who are headed into free agency, talking about those players' uncertain futures before adding, "myself included."
So, if you were among those who want to believe there's no way in god's green-and-gold earth the soon-to-be three-time NFL MVP won't be the Packers' starting quarterback next season, you could focus on Rodgers' first 13 words in that answer and feel comforted the guy who completed a career-best 70.7% of his passes for 4,299 yards with a career-high 48 touchdown passes and only five interceptions (121.5 passer rating) isn't going anywhere with three years left on his contract.
But if you were among those who are concerned Rodgers will ask the Packers to restructure his existing contract or ask for a new deal — NBC's Pro Football Talk reported Tuesday that Rodgers is indeed seeking a new contract — then you likely fixated on the way Rodgers emphasized the words "I think" in his reply. And you likely paid far more attention to the second half of his answer, in which he acknowledged that there's no guarantee of anything in the modern NFL.
For his part, Rodgers later said he plans to talk with general manager Brian Gutekunst, coach Matt LaFleur or team president/CEO Mark Murphy in the coming days, emphasizing he's not leaving town immediately now that the season is over.
Rodgers characterized those conversations as annual discussions and wouldn't say how in-depth those talks might get about his long-term future with the team or any assurance from the team that the club will commit to him beyond the 2021 season, after which his contract makes it very easy for the team to move on from him at a significant salary-cap savings.
"There's conversation to be had; I'm going to have them with the right people," Rodgers said. "It's the same conversation we have every single year. There's no big, 'I'm going to the table with I need this and this and this.'
"Look, we have honest conversations about where we're at every single year, whether that's with Brian, Matt, Mark. I've had these conversations for years. That's part of being a leader on the squad and having a pulse of the team and a direction that we're going. And we'll have the same conversation we do every year. I always look forward to those conversations."
Rodgers, who signed a four-year, $134 million contract extension in 2018 with two years left on his existing deal, is scheduled to receive a $15.05 million base salary and $6.8 million roster bonus in 2021. With the proration of the original $57.5 million signing bonus he received, he's set to count $37.57 million against the salary cap.
On Monday evening, Murphy said forcefully on "The Fifth Quarter" on WTAQ and WNFL radio in Green Bay the Packers aren't trying to get rid of their quarterback.
"I'll say this, there's no way in heck that Aaron is not going to be on the Packers. I mean, he is going to be the MVP of the league," Murphy told host Mark Daniels. "He might have had his best year ever. He's our unquestioned leader, and, you know, we're not idiots."
The Packers could appease Rodgers and help their own short-term salary-cap situation by restructuring his deal and converting some of his base salary and the roster bonus into a signing bonus, which would allow them to prorate that amount over future years. Such a move would provide Rodgers tangible proof the Packers want him to be their starter beyond this coming season while also freeing up cap space in a year where the salary cap could drop as low as $175 million because of the league's COVID-19 related financial losses.
While the Packers generally don't like to push cap charges out into the future, converting Rodgers' money to create cap space is hardly unprecedented. In December 2019, they converted $14.26 million of Rodgers' 2020 $19.5 million roster bonus into a signing bonus, allowing them to prorate that amount over five seasons, including 2019. That accounting maneuver saved the Packers $11.4 million in 2020 cap space.
The structure of Rodgers' deal, which has him set to earn a $25 million base salary in 2022, allows the Packers to move on from him after next season and save significant cap space. As of now, he's set to count $39.85 million against the 2022 cap, but cutting or trading him would leave just $17.2 million in dead money behind. That means the Packers would actually save $22.6 million in cap room by not keeping him beyond 2021.
Leading into the NFC Championship Game, Rodgers called his future "a beautiful mystery." Despite varying interpretations of what he said Tuesday, there's still plenty of uncertainty ahead for the sure-fire first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer, who in May acknowledged his goal of spending his entire career with the Packers is less likely to be realized following Gutekunst's decision to trade up in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft in April to pick Utah State quarterback Jordan Love.
"I don't feel like I said anything (after Sunday's game) that I hadn't said before," Rodgers told McAfee. "I said it the first time I talked to the media (after Love was picked). It was more a realization I think that ultimately my future is not necessarily in my control. That was what just kind of hit me in the moment (on Sunday). I was just thinking of Aaron Jones, Corey Linsley, other guys we have under contract, 'Big Dog,' guys who I don't know what their future is going to be, and myself included.
"Naturally, there's time when you let your mind go to maybe, 'I'm going to be a Packer for life.' Or, 'I'm going to be like a Tim Duncan or (Derek) Jeter or Kobe (Bryant) and play with one team my entire career.' Naturally, you dream about that. That's kind of like a dream scenario. I've talked about that for much of my career.
"When they drafted Jordan, it was more the reality kicking in. Like, 'Hey, that's actually never the case. There are no absolutes in this business.' I think it's a beautiful thing to sit with and to wrap your head around. And I did. I got to a beautiful place about it. It doesn't mean that that's not still a reality. I think that's the only reality, is that there's no absolutes in this business. I just reiterated that after the game.
"I get it, some people were like, 'You just threw 48 touchdowns and probably going to win MVP.' Yeah, I understand that. But, again, there's no absolutes in this business. I gave a real answer in the moment."
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