At the Green Bay Packers’ annual owners meeting in late July, team president Mark Murphy stood at a lectern on the 50-yard line in Lambeau Field and informed myself and about 8,000 of my fellow shareholders (many of whom are pictured above) that the team would retire Aaron Rodgers’ No. 12 “at the appropriate time.”
While at least one reporter wrote that there were “a few tempered boos” at the mention of Rodgers’ name, I heard none of that from my seat in Lambeau’s lower stands. I heard only cheers for Rodgers, who three months earlier had been traded to the New York Jets. Granted, I might have been distracted by the guy seated a few rows in front of me, to my right, who was decked out in the uniform of star running back Aaron Jones, complete with helmet and shoulder pads. Or I might have been distracted by the guy seated a few rows in front of me, to my left, who for some reason was wearing the blue jersey of Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen.
But that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. The fans’ response, in my mind, seemed to be, Yeah, it got weird at the end, but we still appreciate everything you did in your 18 years here.
And make no mistake, it did get weird at the end. Rodgers seemed to bristle from the moment the Packers drafted his successor, Jordan Love, in 2020. He feuded with management, general manager Brian Gutekunst in particular. He was cavalier about COVID-19, saying he was “immunized” when in fact he eschewed the vaccine. He did minimal work before the 2022 season with a retooled receiving corps, which stood in stark contrast to the approach of his Kansas City (and State Farm) counterpart, Patrick Mahomes. The result: Mahomes won a Super Bowl, while Rodgers was a big reason the Packers finished 8-9 and out of the playoffs for the first time in four seasons.
Then there was the stuff about ayahuasca and the darkness retreat and everything else. So yeah, time to go. (And while neither I nor any of my fellow Packers owners – there are over 537,000 of us in all – had any say in the move that sent him to Gotham, I’m guessing there was widespread agreement among those holding a piece of pro sports’ only publicly owned team that a cord-cutting was necessary. I mean, enough already.)
At the same time, there is no joy in watching the 39-year-old Rodgers lost for the season with a torn Achilles, four plays into the Jets’ opener Monday night against Buffalo. None at all. I did not put a curse on him, as a friend suggested. Nor did I bristle over the fact that his injury now consigns the Packers to another second-round pick in the trade, as opposed to the 2024 first-rounder they would have accrued, had Rodgers played 65 percent of the snaps this season.
I just found it kind of sad. This, potentially, is how a great career ends? Really?
Yes, players like Rodgers can be objectionable in the extreme. But so many of them are so often discarded so casually, so coldly. So many of them are ground down by a brutal game, then tossed aside without a second thought. Then another guy comes along and we all move on, proving the old Seinfeldian adage that sports fans root only for clothing – for the jerseys of Aaron Jones and Josh Allen and Aaron Rodgers, as opposed to those wearing them.
So my feeling was, it would have been nice to see him walk away on his own terms, since few players are afforded the opportunity to do so. Murphy is just one example. As he walked out for the shareholders’ meeting – an affair held each year on the eve of training camp – his limp betrayed the knee injury the 68-year-old suffered in 1984, the last of his eight seasons as a starting safety for Washington.
After that season, he was released, and never played again.
All-time greats Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath played out the string with the Chargers and Rams, respectively. Franco Harris wound up a Seahawk, as did Jerry Rice. Joe Montana was still effective with the Chiefs at the end, and Tom Brady won a Super Bowl as a Buccaneer – but at this point I’m not even sure Brady’s human. There are some serious Benjamin Button/Terminator vibes with that cat.
Rodgers held Father Time at bay for a long while, too, earning his third and fourth MVP awards in 2020 and 2021, respectively – not coincidentally, immediately after the team drafted Love. But he was no better than average in playoff losses to Tampa Bay and San Francisco at the end of those seasons, and even worse in 2022, at least in part because he suffered a thumb injury in a Week Five loss to the Giants in London.
Still, the Packers might have made the playoffs, had they beaten Detroit – Detroit! – in Week 18 at home. Alas, they could not. Rodgers’ last pass as a Packer was intercepted, as was that of his predecessor, Brett Favre, 15 years before. And like Favre, Rodgers was then shipped off to the Jets.
The Packers used three of the picks they acquired for him to select Iowa defensive end Lukas Van Ness, Oregon State tight end Luke Musgrave and Auburn kicker Anders Carlson, all of whom showed promise in a season-opening rout of Chicago. Love also played well in that game, though it’s a long season and it was, after all, the Bears.
Rodgers underwent surgery Thursday, and in a social media post one day earlier proclaimed, “I shall rise yet again.” Maybe that comes off as arrogant, but so be it. That’s him. It would still be nice to see him get a chance to craft his own ending – to walk away, as opposed to being helped off. At least that’s the view I have, from my owner’s suite.