Green Bay Packers must think about drafting a QB in the next couple of drafts
The Green Bay Packers have been blessed over the past nearly three decades to have two of the greatest quarterbacks playing for the franchise.
Is there an NFL team that has been blessed like this?
We don’t think so.
Consider how lucky the under-30 Packers fans have been growing up watching only Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers taking snaps.
Favre led the Packers through the glory years of the 1990s to the mid-2000s and was followed by Aaron Rodgers, who has been the Packers starting quarterback since 2008.
Rodgers recently tweeted about going another 12 years, but will his body and the Packers’ bank account be able to withstand the impact?
Rodgers signed a five-year, $110,000,000 contract three years ago that included a $33,250,000 signing bonus and $54,000,000 guaranteed.
That contract will come to an end after the 2019 season.
What happens before and after that is one of the great unknowns.
Will GM Ted Thompson take Rodgers aside and convince him to re-sign for a team-friendly amount before Rodgers hits the free agent market in the spring of 2020, or does he let the longtime Packer walk?
If Rodgers can play another 10 seasons and re-signs with the Packers, that would be a job well done. But if Thompson doesn’t want to take those chances, then he needs to start hitting the road and scouting quarterbacks that may be on the horizon.
The potential trade of backup quarterback Brett Hundley will also play into the Packers’ quarterback formula.
If Hundley is dealt, and it appears that his number may be up in Green Bay sooner than we may think, Joe Callahan will rise to the backup position for now. That’s the undrafted Joe Callahan who ripped it up in preseason last year, was picked up for a short time by the New Orleans Saints and then came back to Green Bay midway through the 2016 season.
Maybe Mike McCarthy likes Callahan enough to keep him around as a developmental player, but the Packers will need someone on the roster who can step in if and when Rodgers suffers an injury – God forbid.
The question swirling around Packers Nation is whether Green Bay needs to start its search now and draft a potential starting quarterback in 2018 or 2019 – which might be the smart thing to do.
However, is there a Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers out there – the type of player who could become the face of the Green Bay Packers once Rodgers leaves the game?
A strong class of quarterbacks appear on the horizon in the 2018 draft, led by Sam Darnold of USC and Josh Rosen of UCLA.
If the field of quarterbacks is strong, expect the draft to be front-loaded with teams searching for their signal-caller.
Behind Darnold and Rosen in the preliminary rankings are guys like Luke Falk of Washington State, Josh Allen of Wyoming and Jarrett Stidham of Auburn.
Maybe the Green Bay Packers get lucky again in one of the next couple of drafts to have one of the best fall to them, like Rodgers did in 2005, but we can’t hope for another miracle like that.
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In the meantime, the clock is ticking on Aaron Rodgers’ contract in Green Bay and Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson have to be listening to every second going by.