Remember Aaron Rodgers? He played QB in Green Bay for a few years?
Well, reader, Aaron Rodgers needs a new team. You see, he gracefully requested* a trade to the Jets a few years back, and things have gone extremely well* for him since. He brought the team back to relevancy*, did a whole bunch (ish) of winning*, but now is staring at a crossroads of his career.
(*subject to interpretation)
No one's quite sure where Rodgers will suit up next, mostly because there just aren't that many title-contending teams that truly need a veteran QB. The Vikings looked like an interesting spot, but that window is supposedly shut. The Raiders always have a little more intrigue than they deserve, but they're a *ways* away from contending, and it's not like Rodgers can bring his pal Davante Adams with him there.
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But what if Rodgers simply ... doesn't choose any teams? What if Rodgers simply doesn't play ever again? That's the premise that ESPN is trying to pull off in their latest long list of NFL offseason predictions, which they published this week. Instead of trying to find a new team for Rodgers, they take a big ("big") swing and predict that we've seen the last of him in an NFL uniform.
ESPN predicts that Aaron Rodgers' NFL career is officially over
Here's what ESPN's Jeremy Fowler revealed from his conversation with an anonymous AFC executive:
"'I'm just trying to think of a logical place for him to play and I can't think of one,' an AFC executive said. 'I'm guessing he doesn't want to go to a rebuild. And if you're a contender, I'm not sure they want to take on Aaron Rodgers and all that comes with that. So, he might just come to the conclusion that he's done.'
Quarterback-needy teams picking high in the draft such as the Tennessee Titans, Cleveland Browns and New York Giants don't seem too enticing for Rodgers at this stage."
I mean, I wouldn't want to be the Titans, Browns, or Giants QB either, so hard to blame him there. As long as he doesn't come back to the NFC North, I think Packers fans are more-or-less cool with whatever decision he makes.
Rodgers - if you can believe it – spent the last month of the season being annoyingly coy about his future plans, and I'm sure he'll elaborate on them in some overdone interview with Pat McAfee when the time is right. But it does kind of feel like we're entering a new, Rodgers-less era in the NFL. Who will quote Ayn Rand now?!