The Green Bay Packers traded quarterback Aaron Rodgers to the Jets on Monday, ending a three-year energy wrestle between the crew and one of many sport’s best passers.
The Jets agreed to commerce the No. 13 general decide on this yr’s draft, in addition to two later-round picks and a conditional second-round decide within the 2024 NFL draft, in alternate for Rodgers, the No. 15 decide and a later-round decide, after a comparatively prolonged negotiation course of. The commerce, which was confirmed by an individual with data of the phrases who was not approved to talk publicly, was first reported by ESPN.
Since quarterback Joe Namath led the Jets to their solely Super Bowl in 1969, the franchise has struggled to search out one other long-term successor. The crew has used first-round picks to attempt to repair the place: Richard Todd in 1976, Ken O’Brien in 1983, Chad Pennington in 2000, Mark Sanchez in 2009, Sam Darnold in 2018, and Zach Wilson in 2021. But none have succeeded.
In the promising 2022 season, the Jets began 6-3 behind top-of-the-line defenses within the league and a gifted offense. But lackluster quarterback play was the crew’s most obtrusive gap, and it finally saved it out of the playoffs for the tenth straight season. Now the Jets get Rodgers, who ought to place the Jets as championship contenders.
Rodgers, 39, spent 18 seasons in Green Bay, the place he received the league’s Most Valuable Player Award 4 occasions, most just lately in 2020 and 2021, however he had grown more and more dissatisfied with the franchise’s route and his lack of enter on personnel selections.
Rodgers turned the Packers’ starter in 2008, three years after the crew drafted him with the twenty fourth general pick of California, Berkeley. He changed the Hall of Famer Brett Favre, who had delivered one title in 16 seasons in Green Bay earlier than the Packers traded him to the Jets.
Rodgers shortly eased followers’ nostalgia for Favre. After a six-win season in his first yr as a starter, Rodgers made the Pro Bowl within the 2009 season after main the Packers to an 11-5 report. In his third season as a starter, Rodgers and Green Bay received a Super Bowl title over the Pittsburgh Steelers.
He adopted the championship with arguably one of the best season of his profession. Rodgers received his first MVP, ending with probably the most passing yards (4,643) of his profession, and the best quarterback score (122.5) in NFL historical past. Rodgers additionally holds the report for the second-highest quarterback score, 121.5, set within the 2020 season.
Favre turned the primary and solely quarterback to win MVP in three consecutive seasons from 1995 to 1997. Starting in 2003, the award was traded between Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, two generational quarterbacks who received six of 9 MVPs earlier than Rodgers crashed the celebration.
Rodgers turned a face of the NFL, famous as a lot for his endorsements with State Farm and Adidas, as for posting a few of the finest statistical performances of any quarterback of his period. But one other championship eluded him and the Packers, whereas Brady, Manning, Ben Roethlisberger and Patrick Mahomes have all received not less than two Super Bowls.
The Packers misplaced within the NFC championship sport 5 occasions with Rodgers beneath heart, a playoff impediment that exposed the fissure between the quarterback and his crew starting in January 2020 after a blowout loss to the San Francisco 49ers in that spherical.
Ahead of that yr’s draft, Rodgers criticized the Packers for not utilizing first-round picks on large receivers who may pair alongside the then-starter Davante Adams. “We have not picked a ability participant within the first spherical in 15 years, so that might be type of cool,” Rodgers stated in an interview.
Green Bay crew executives that yr drafted quarterback Jordan Love with the twenty sixth general decide, a transfer that appeared to echo Rodgers’ choice in 2005 when a veteran Favre was the crew’s starter.
Rodgers responded with considered one of his finest seasons, main the league in completion share (70.7) and landing passes (48) — and one other loss within the convention championship sport.
That low season, Rodgers stewed privately and in public appearances on podcasts, and even as he guest-hosted the TV sport present “Jeopardy!”. The pressure reached a head in April 2021, when ESPN reported that Rodgers had requested to be traded.
In July 2021, Rodgers skipped necessary minicamp however later attended coaching camp, addressing the rift in his first information convention. “I simply expressed my want to be extra concerned in conversations immediately affecting my job,” he stated, explaining his want for extra of a job within the crew’s personnel selections.
But the season was outlined as a lot by Rodgers’s efficiency as the explanations for his absences. He examined constructive for the coronavirus in November, months after he had advised reporters that he was “immunized,” in opposition to the illness. Rodgers that month decried the league’s vaccination mandate and “woke tradition” in two podcast interviews. The NFL later fined him $14,650 for violating protocols for unvaccinated gamers, which included not sporting a masks throughout his weekly information conferences and attending a Halloween celebration.
Despite the conflicts, Rodgers once more excelled within the 2021 season, throwing 37 landing passes to simply 4 interceptions, main the NFL in passer score and guiding the Packers to a 13-4 report throughout one other MVP marketing campaign. The crew misplaced within the divisional spherical of the playoffs, however that low season Rodgers signed a three-year contract extension with a reported $150 million in assured cash.
In March 2022, the Packers traded Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Packers’ offense struggled. Green Bay missed the playoffs, dropping its ultimate sport of the season to the Detroit Lions, a crew Rodgers has crushed 18 occasions in his profession.
After the sport, Rodgers advised a Lions participant requesting his jersey that he “was going to maintain this one,” implying that it might need private significance. Throughout the low season, Rodgers had been brutally sincere about his relationship with the Packers, and gave imprecise and cryptic solutions about his future within the NFL.
As studies of Rodgers’ curiosity within the Jets hit social media within the weeks main as much as the commerce, Jets gamers brazenly vied for his companies. Ahmad Gardner, the Jets cornerback generally known as Sauce, donned a Packers fan’s cheesehead hat after the crew beat Green Bay final season. ugh burned the hat alongside different Jets teammates on a video meant to recruit Rodgers.
The Jets’ marketing campaign for Rodgers got here simply two seasons after deciding on Wilson with the No. 2 general decide, however Wilson not often appeared the half. He was benched in November 2022, after the offense gained simply 2 yards within the second half of a 10-3 defeat to the New England Patriots.
Wilson is getting into the third yr of his rookie contract and now ought to function a backup to Rodgers.
In a league the place groups wrestle to search out high-quality beginning quarterbacks, the Jets appear to have lastly resolved a decades-long search. Green Bay, then again, has had the luxurious of getting premier play on the sport’s most necessary place for the previous 20 years. Now it is going to doubtless flip to Love, who has began only one sport over three seasons and must observe within the footsteps of two of one of the best quarterbacks in NFL historical past.