Packers: Aaron Rodgers situation shows lack of confidence in Jordan Love

The Green Bay Packers have tried to make us believe they want Aaron Rodgers back for a Super Bowl pursuit, but the real reason is much clearer.

The Packers have been the subject of endless drama this offseason. The minute the NFC Championship game ended with yet another crushing loss on the precipice of the Super Bowl, Aaron Rodgers, as only he can, began to stir the pot with ambiguous, vague hints at his uncertain future in Green Bay.

“A lot of guys… futures are uncertain, myself included,” a despondent Rodgers uttered as Tom Brady marched on to his 867th Super Bowl appearance. Yes, that raised eyebrows, but it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. While the drafting of Jordan Love makes literally no sense under any set of circumstances, two things are clear: the Packers haven’t the foggiest clue what they’re doing, and Rodgers knows his time is running short.

When the Packers fumbled away a fourth-round pick to “select” Love, the only way anyone could have absorbed it was Rodgers was on his way out, for whatever reason. Well, a full season later, that may well be happening, only in the exact opposite way Green Bay would have envisioned.

Imagining a petty, often immature Rodgers, or any quarterback for that matter, would gracefully forget this ever happened is at best, an awful miscalculation by the Packer braintrust, who seem to have no earthly idea how quarterbacks operate in this day and age.

Rodgers, by all accounts and according to countless contemporaneous accounts, has actually been a good soldier to Jordan Love directly, unlike Brett Favre was to Rodgers.

Aaron Jones, on “The Rich Eisen Show”, spoke of the Rodgers-Love relationship:

"“You see him working with Jordan every day, all day, trying to teach him as much as he can. That’s the cool part to see about A-Rod… maybe it might be a play, and what he saw if it was the first read or the second read or third read, maybe a little bit on the mechanics side of it, he just goes into so many different things. Or, it could be the sound of the cadence, trying to get them jumping offsides, little things. He’s just trying to better the players around him, truly.”"

Fresh off a ridiculous MVP campaign and a playoff win, Rodgers has forced the Packers management to embarrass themselves one way or another.

Cameras were not allowed in team practices this past year as a COVID-prevention measure. That, combined with Love not even suiting up for a single game all season leaves the Packers as the only ones who have the slightest premonitions about Love’s ability.

Even in the midst of Rodgers making his disgust with the team well known to all paying attention, and Love seemingly waiting in the wings, the Packers are not going to trade Rodgers to save themselves from being embarrassed more than they already have.

Trading Rodgers would not be popular among fans, but from a football perspective, it would be far from the worst-case scenario. The Packers are going into next year with a new defensive coordinator, a rookie center, and still no answer at middle linebacker… again.

Even a disgruntled and aging Rodgers would yield multiple first-round picks, at least one ascending young player, and years of cap relief. This way, the Packers could at least see if Love is at all capable of being a franchise quarterback, and enjoy multiple years of cap flexibility with a quarterback on a rookie contract. But instead of making this move, the Packers know something the rest of the sports world is figuring out: Jordan Love can’t throw it into the ocean.

This is the same team, and mostly the same set of front-office characters that shipped Brett Favre to the Jets for a single draft choice. Rodgers had seen little bits of backup play to that point, including one notable appearance on a Thursday night game against the Cowboys late in the 2007 season. While far from the player he is today, Rodgers did show flashes of potential, and at least appeared on his way to a starting job at some point in his career.

The Packers are too afraid to trade Rodgers, because they are scared to death of having Love take even one snap. Brian Gutekunst is plenty smart, and he can foresee the scorn coming his way when the full picture is painted. In between NFC championship losses, he hemorrhaged two draft choices for a player that didn’t help his team a lick this past season.

For Love, Rodgers being traded would set himself up pretty well in comparison to other young quarterbacks. Trevor Lawrence, Zach Wilson, and others are jumping into losing franchises with rookie coaches and years of growing to do. Meanwhile, Love would be inheriting one of the three or four best receivers in the world, a Pro Bowl running back, a still solid offensive line, and one of the brighter offensive coaching staffs in football.

If Love was showing even the faintest glimmers of promise in practice everyday, the Packers would do the same thing they did with Favre, and turn the page. They’re not keeping Rodgers around because it’s the best thing for the team. Rather, Brian Gutekunst knows how royally he screwed up the whole situation, and doesn’t want to see Jordan Love on the field within the next 10,000 contractions of the universe.