What if Aaron Rodgers is actually being selfless instead of selfish?
Mar 7, 2022, 2:58 PM
As the Aaron Rodgers drama continues to drag on, with the quarterback still undecided about what he’s going to do in 2022, most people are becoming tired of the situation. They’re over it. They’re sick of hearing about it, talking about it and reading about it. It’s a seemingly never-ending story, one that actually dates back to last offseason.
Thus, football fans are getting frustrated with Rodgers. In Green Bay, in Denver and in almost every other city, people are turning on the future Hall of Fame QB.
While there are all sorts of reasons for this sentiment, one seems to always rise to the top. Those who are anti-Rodgers see him as selfish. They believe he’s someone who is stretching out the soap opera because he loves the attention. It’s become such a common opinion that even Charles Barkley is on board with it.
Charles Barkley had this to say about Aaron Rodgers.
(via @ESPN1000) pic.twitter.com/wPdMvgr3oU
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) March 4, 2022
But what if there’s more at play here? What if Rodgers is actually doing the opposite?
Currently, the Packers are roughly $30 million over the salary cap for 2022. In order to franchise tag Davante Adams, arguably the best wide receiver in the league, Green Bay will have to get approximately $19 million under the cap. That’s a $49 million swing that has to happen in the next 24 hours.
While the Packers have chipped away at their cap issues in the past week or so, they still have a lot of ground to make up. It’ll be almost impossible for them to do if they don’t do something with Rodgers.
At the moment, the quarterback is slated to count $46.67 million against the cap in 2022. A reworked deal for the veteran QB is the quickest and biggest way to make a huge dent in the team’s financial problems.
Perhaps, Rodgers doesn’t want to help them put the franchise tag on Adams. The quarterback is good friends with his favorite target. So it’s not outside the realm of possibility that he’s slow-walking his decision in order to help the wideout avoid the one-year, $19 million deal and instead hit the open market, where he’s projected to attract a five-year, $130-million contract in free agency.
That could be with the Packers. Or it could be with whatever team Rodgers plays for next season if he requests a trade.
That’s good for Adams. And it’s good for Rodgers.
It’s only bad for the Packers. They’d like to find a solution to these issues sooner rather than later. They’d like to avoid seeing Adams hit the open market. They’d like to have Rodgers back.
The franchise-tag deadline coming and going (Tuesday at 2:00 p.m. Mountain Time) without Adams getting tagged doesn’t mean Rodgers is leaving Green Bay. It also doesn’t mean that he won’t rework his deal to help the Packers re-sign Adams, keep other key members of the team intact (his second- and third-best wideouts from last year are also free agents) and run it back once again at Lambeau Field.
It will simply mean that he helped his friend avoid a financial fate that any player would want to avoid. While $19 million in 2022 isn’t a “bad” deal, it’s certainly less attractive that the long-term security that would come from a multi-year contract.
Rodgers has the power to help Adams fall into the second category. So he’s taking the heat and absorbing the PR arrows while the franchise-tag clock ticks toward the 11th hour.
Maybe, just maybe, Aaron Rodgers is actually being the opposite of selfish in his current battle with the Packers. Perhaps the quarterback is actually committing a selfless act in order to help his teammate and friend.
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