The Packers will likely trade quarterback Aaron Rodgers before or during the 2023 NFL Draft because: 1) it makes the most sense for the team; and 2) General Manager Brian Gutekunst has hinted that this year’s draft is the deadline for trading Rodgers.
“I think the sooner the better,” Gutekunst said at NFL owners’ meetings last week when asked if Green Bay’s capital returns must be effective this year or are possible for 2024 and beyond.
The Jets now have the leverage because the Packers have an incentive to close a pre-draft trade and New York doesn’t. The Packers would benefit from using any picks they receive in return to immediately surround quarterback Jordan Love with more talent to succeed as a starter in Year 1, rather than waiting a year to reap the rewards of trade returns to harvest.
But just because it makes the most sense for Gutekunst to accept the Jets’ best offer by April 27 (Round 1 of the draft) or April 28 (Rounds 2 and 3) doesn’t mean he will.
When asked about the possibility of carrying this saga into the summer, Gutekunst said: “I think we can hopefully do it before that, but while it lasts.”
After all, Gutekunst has a job to do, a line he used when explaining why he switched from Rodgers after the quarterback associated himself as difficult this offseason and is more inclined to play hardball than softball .
Gutekunst and Jets GM Joe Douglas had been on the phone for weeks until last Monday at the league meeting. They spoke in person again in Phoenix last week. As of Tuesday night, there was still no deal. The draft is a little over three weeks away, so there’s no rush to close a deal right now, no matter how badly everyone outside of both organizations seems to want a deal. Gutekunst even said the Packers could afford to wait until May or June if the Jets don’t offer a package for Rodgers they see fit by then.
“Not much is going on at the moment,” Gutekunst said. “So again, I think it has to work for both parties and I think we’re both committed to figuring that out. It’s really kind of in her court now. We’ll see where it goes.”
But what if the trade isn’t done by the end of the draft like we all think? What happens then?
“Certainly, if we get beyond the draft, then everything changes, the remuneration changes,” said Gutekunst. “That would be a completely different scenario.”
If Rodgers is still employed by the Packers on April 29, Day 3 of the draft, then that situation takes a turn. The Packers would use the leverage after the two days they would use the draft capital exchanged for Rodgers had elapsed. And the Jets would be pressured to strike a deal to get their preferred starting quarterback in the building sooner or later. The Packers already have their QB1 report for the service. New York has Zach Wilson, and Douglas said at league meetings that a move to Lamar Jackson would be in bad faith given how far they went with Rodgers. So trading in Jackson is off the table as an alternative, and getting Rodgers is the only viable option unless Jets bosses and coaches want to sign their resignation papers before the season even starts.
The Packers may actually have an incentive to wait until after June 1 to finalize a deal, since the more than $40.3 million dead money in 2023 if Rodgers trades before June 1, would be split over two years, according to Over The Cap — about $15.8 million in 2023 and the rest in 2024. The Packers might want to eat that dead money to make sure it doesn’t linger, but they have more financial possibilities, if this still goes beyond the draft.
The only deadline by which the Packers Rodgers have to act if this standoff continues beyond the draft is the start of the regular season. At that point, the Packers would have to pay his $58.3 million option bonus over the counter. They don’t do that for a quarterback they don’t start, and the Jets need Rodgers in the building well before then, which is why Green Bay would retain leverage after April 29.
As for compensation if a trade isn’t completed by the end of the draft, the Packers could turn their attention to players who can improve their roster immediately if they don’t receive 2023 draft capital. That could be the approach, albeit not as a full replacement for all of the deal’s draft capital, as they would likely still seek to acquire 2024 capital and possibly even a conditional 2025 pick, depending on Rodgers’ playing time and performances at the jets The trade package might look a little different before and after the draft as the Packers must do whatever it takes in negotiations to update their 2023 roster rather than settle for waiting until 2024 for the benefits, especially because one team Doing this with Rodgers will likely have worse picks than a team without him.
Head coach Matt LaFleur wants an experienced wide receiver to join Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs, who are entering their second season after promising rookie campaigns. Meanwhile, Jets receiver Corey Davis, entering his seventh season at age 28, is on the block. He played for the Titans when LaFleur was Tennessee’s offensive coordinator in 2018 and has caught 65 passes for 891 yards and four touchdowns this season. He could still be part of the deal, but perhaps his inclusion in a package would be more likely if the Packers don’t accept an offer by April 28. Green Bay may also be eyeing other players to make up for what they would have lost by forgoing the 2023 draft capital.
On the rare hypothesis that Rodgers hasn’t been traded by the time mandatory minicamp begins on June 13, there’s no way he’d show up at Lambeau Field, right? That would be incredible drama, but it’s a question the Packers don’t even want to think about the answer to. Rodgers might want to make things as uncomfortable as possible for an organization that he clearly takes offense at, according to his comments on “The Pat McAfee Show,” but it’s hard to believe he’d want to make things complicated for Love and Hover above him at the facility as the 24-year-old has to answer questions about #12 and his locker nameplate, which still exists at 1265 Lombardi Ave.
That would be the main disadvantage of this saga that continues. Love needs the smoothest possible takeoff off the runway early in his freshman year. The longer Rodgers stays on the list, the more turmoil there will be for Love when he doesn’t have to.
“I think all the options are on the table right now,” Gutekunst said when asked about an unlikely Rodgers-Packers reunion this summer. “The trend is not going in that direction and I am confident that we can enable and achieve that. But he has come back before in certain circumstances where he may not have been the happiest with everything that was going on and played very well. So we’ll just see how this all plays out. I think hopefully it’s trending in the right direction for what everyone wants and we can wrap that up.
(Photo by Aaron Rodgers: Megan Briggs/Getty Images)