Couch: Aaron Rodgers' Desire To Leave Packers Makes No Sense

When Deshaun Watson first wanted out of Houston, it made perfect sense: He’s a stud quarterback and the Texans are a joke franchise. Russell Wilson was dropping hints that he’d like to leave the Seattle Seahawks, but he kept getting hit. Matthew Stafford wanted his freedom from Detroit, but who doesn’t?

But Aaron Rodgers? What on earth is his problem?

A year after Tom Brady walked away from the New England Patriots and found a franchise in Tampa Bay that was willing to give him what he wanted, top NFL quarterbacks are testing their power, signaling that they won’t play anymore for teams they have contracts with. 

It’s a new thing, possibly learned in part from LeBron James’ example. But we’ll call this the NFL’s flee market era. Flee agency? Whatever. It’s hard to see why Rodgers is joining in.

The Green Bay Packers are built to win the Super Bowl. They have gotten to the NFC Championship Game the past two years. And Rodgers’ life? He keeps bouncing from actress to supermodel, is the possible future of Jeopardy!, hangs with Jake from State Farm and was even an A-lister Sunday at the Kentucky Derby, setting Twitter off with his Turd Ferguson button (I’ll get to that in a minute).

After detailed analysis and a hard look at the Packers and Rodgers, I’ve come to a conclusion. Take it for what it’s worth: Rodgers is a weird dude. 

Respectfully, Aaron: Boo hoo.

Rodgers has a bad case of Brady Jealousy. Rodgers outplayed Brady in the NFC Championship Game in January, but lost anyway. And Brady went on to solidify his Greatest Of All Time status with another Super Bowl win. Rodgers is never going to be the GOAT. He’ll be a Hall of Famer, but he’ll never be Brady.

Rodgers is still upset that the Packers traded up to get quarterback Jordan Love last year in the first round of the NFL draft. Reports came out Thursday, the first day of this year’s draft, that Rodgers doesn’t want to play for the Packers anymore. Since then, more reports say that Rodgers simply doesn’t want to be on a team that has Brian Gutenkunst as general manager.

Gutekunst didn’t consult with Rodgers before drafting Love.

In the NFC Championship Game this past year, Packers coach Matt LaFleur didn’t consult with Rodgers either, before the Packers kicked a field goal with under two minutes left instead of giving Rodgers a chance to tie the game. So Rodgers is upset with the lack of communication there, too.

The Packers have flown out to see Rodgers the past few months, kissing his Super Bowl ring and begging him to stay. Gutekunst and LaFleur have been saying publicly that they should have communicated better with Rodgers.

And it’s true that when the Packers were that close to a Super Bowl in the 2019 season, it’s a weird move to go get the future replacement for a 36-year-old quarterback instead of filling in whatever pieces were needed to win a championship.

But Rodgers doesn’t seem upset over the missed opportunity so much as the personal snub that his replacement was brought in. And with that, he’s now reportedly interested in being traded to the Las Vegas Raiders. The Denver Broncos tried to trade for him on Thursday. Apparently, San Francisco was involved at some point.

Those teams aren’t as close to winning as Green Bay. 

So what does Rodgers even want? What is his life missing now?

He’s carrying a grudge about a GM picking his long term replacement as he gets to the final few years of his career? And as the Ringer reminded recently, three years ago Bleacher Report wrote an article that said that Rodgers hadn’t spoken with his family in years, hadn’t given them his cellphone number and was even mailing back their Christmas presents.

Now, obviously I don’t know what all went into that. 

Meanwhile, Brady developed a grudge against New England Coach Bill Belichick. Brady got Rob Gronkowski to come out of retirement and talked Tampa into signing troubled receiver Antonio Brown. And when Tampa’s offense wasn’t working early this season, they changed the offense for Brady. Meanwhile, the Packers have taken just one offensive player to help Rodgers in the first round since 2012.

And it was Rodgers’ replacement.

The question now is whether the term “franchise quarterback” is about having the right QB for a franchise or the right franchise for a QB.

From here, if the Packers won’t trade Rodgers, he can just retire until they trade his rights. He can sit out, do Jeopardy!. Pout. Whatever. 

One more thing: The Turd Ferguson button at the Kentucky Derby. That’s the name Norm Macdonald wrote years ago on Saturday Night Live when he was playing the part of Burt Reynolds doing Celebrity Jeopardy!.

“Yeah, that’s right,’’ Macdonald/Reynolds said. “Turd Ferguson. It’s a funny name.’’

But Brady was at the Derby, too, and one-upped Rodgers again with a silly looking hat that made him look like Jim Carrey in the movie The Mask.

Weird dude.