Green Bay Packers 3 prime destinations for Aaron Rodgers in 2022
By Sean Basile
Let’s take a look at three prime destinations for Green Bay Packers MVP Aaron Rodgers in 2022 as we head deeper into the NFL offseason.
The Green Bay Packers enter the 2022 offseason with an uncertain future, and the decision of Aaron Rodgers on where he wants to play next season will determine where every other quarterback on the market will want to play.
Since the Packers drafted Jordan Love in the first round of 2020, it has been apparent that they and Aaron have not seen eye-to-eye on a bevy of issues. From Rodgers’s future to the controversy surrounding moving players like Randall Cobb, the volume has been raised in Green Bay for quite some time now, and it may come to a head this offseason if Aaron ultimately decides to leave.
In this article, we will go through and analyze three destinations for Aaron Rodgers that are tied the closest to the future Hall-of-Famer right now.
Green Bay Packers-Aaron Rodgers destination No. 1. Denver Broncos
The first is the most popular one being talked about out there, and that is the Denver Broncos.
But for the life of me, I have yet to understand the full appeal Denver is to a player like Rodgers who is clearly ring-chasing at this point in his career.
More specifically, how do the Broncos stack up to and stand above some other teams in the league that is primed for a Super Bowl run?
Aaron has thrived under Matt LaFleur with the implementation of a strong run game and, more importantly, a commitment to it.
In 2018, when Mike McCarthy was fired mid-season amidst a 6-9-1 year for the Pack, they ran the ball 333 times and averaged 104.2 rushing yards per game. Their attempts were the absolute fewest in football that year, and their rushing yards per game ranked 22nd.
In came Matt LaFleur in 2019, and those rushing attempts shot up to 411 (13th-most in football that year). Rushing yards per game shot up as well to 112.2 and put the Packers in the top 15 in that category.
In 2020, rushing yards per game shot up even more to 132.4 (8th in football), and attempts went up to 443 (12th-most).
And then finally, this past season, rushing yards per game (111.8) and attempts (446) both went down a bit in relation to ranking, but they were still better in both categories than 2018, and the Packers’ attempts were actually higher than they’ve ever been under LaFleur.
The point being, Aaron Rodgers went from 6-9-1 in 2018 to 13 wins in each of the past three years thanks to Matt LaFleur and a commitment to the run game headed by a few combinations of Aaron Jones, Jamaal Williams, and AJ Dillon.
Without that commitment to the run, perhaps the great Aaron Rodgers doesn’t win back-to-back MVPs or post back-to-back-to-back 13-win seasons.
When I look at the Broncos’ run game, it has consistently been in the same ballpark as Green Bay’s in terms of both rushing attempts and rushing yards per game the past 4-5 years. However, now with Nathaniel Hackett in at head coach- a quarterback coach and offensive coordinator prior- how committed to the run game will he really be?
He does not have a back like Aaron Jones to lean on anymore, and if Rodgers were to come to Denver, I’m willing to bet Hackett would employ a heavy passing attack and steer away from the run, breaking the momentum LaFleur had Rodgers in when both were in Green Bay.
That means leaning on young receivers- something Rodgers and Hackett have not done in quite a while in Green Bay.
Courtland Sutton is a nice number one, but he is not on the level of a Davante Adams and it’s debatable if he ever will be.
Jerry Jeudy and Noah Fant continue to underperform, and Tim Patrick, on the flip side, has OVER-performed, so relying on him moving forward is dicy.
On paper, the Bronco receiving class looks young, fresh, star-studded, and primed for perennial years of Pro Bowl-caliber play, but it has yet to really come together. If Sutton can rise to the occasion of a number one receiver with the likes of Teddy Bridgewater, Drew Lock, Joe Flacco, and Case Keenum throwing to him, so too can talents like Jeudy and Fant…but they haven’t.
And finally, knowing Aaron Rodgers like I think I know Aaron Rodgers, I find it very hard to believe he’s going to want to do battle with Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, and Derek Carr twice apiece in any given regular season.
Nor is it really smart for him at this stage of his career.
If you’re Aaron Rodgers, you want a cakewalk regular season that almost automatically sets you up for prime playoff position with home-field advantage every year.
With such criteria, I’d find the NFC North, East, and South, as well as the AFC South significantly more appealing than the AFC West — arguably the toughest division in football right now.
The Broncos have a statistically-sound defense led by young star players like Patrick Surtain II, Bradley Chubb, and Justin Simmons, and an offense that should be explosive on paper. However, is that enough to reel in such a big fish like Aaron Rodgers who would be coming there purely for a championship run? I struggle to see the appeal.