What you need to know: Aaron Rodgers Staying w/ Green Bay Packers

Well, we finally have our answer. Aaron Rodgers will be returning to the Green Bay Packers, according to Pat McAfee.

Since the season ended, all signs have pointed to Rodgers returning to the Green Bay Packers—although, as McAfee reports, retirement was on the table.

For months now, he has spoken glowingly about his relationship with Brian Gutekunst and how he is more involved in the decisions that directly affect his job—something that Rodgers emphasized in his first press conference last summer.

Green Bay would also hire Tom Clements as their new QB coach, and Gutekunst, Mark Murphy, and Matt LaFleur have all made it crystal clear that they want Rodgers back while still making sure they gave him the time he needed to make his decision. Reports suggest that Green Bay is also willing to make Rodgers the highest-paid player in football.

On top of that, and perhaps most importantly, the Packers give Rodgers the best chance to win. The NFC seems fairly open at this point, while in the AFC, Rodgers would have to go through Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, and Joe Burrow.

With Rodgers’ return, there are conflicting reports on what his extension will look like. According to Ian Rapoport, the new deal is a massive four-year extension worth $200 million, including $153 million guaranteed. However, McAfee’s sources say that’s not true.

Even though the salary cap is a bit of an issue, an extension for Rodgers will create quite a bit of cap space in 2022—although how exactly much remains to be seen until we know the details of how his contract is structured. On top of that, there are also plenty of other cap-saving moves at the Green Bay Packers’ disposal for them to keep many of the players from the 2021 team as they try to run it back once again.

Now the question becomes, what do the Green Bay Packers do with Jordan Love? We don’t know for sure how many years have been added to Rodgers’ contract, but the team is clearly committed to him and Love isn’t going to be seeing the field any time soon.

Unless a team blows Green Bay away with an offer or Love wants to be traded, I think it’s worth holding on to him at least for 2022–he provides a backup option and there is little cap relief in moving on from him—but that’s a story for another day.

As Andy Herman pointed out, Gutekunst, Murphy, and Russ Ball deserve some credit as well—not to mention Matt LaFleur, who always maintained a strong relationship with Rodgers, but played an important role in his return. A year ago, it looked like the relationship between management and Rodgers was not repairable, but they made changes to not only salvage the relationship but to completely turn it around.

Now that the biggest domino has fallen, we can expect a flurry of roster moves from the Green Bay Packers over the next week prior to March 16th, when free agency begins.