The Green Bay Packers are one of the most successful franchises in the NFL over the past 30 years, and they’ve ruffled a few feathers along the way. With Brett Favre leading to Aaron Rodgers, to Jordan Love at quarterback, many of their rivals have done their best to keep up and it’s produced a few feuds in the process.
One of the biggest feuds happened with a member of the Minnesota Vikings, and his place in the rivalry with the Packers still has fans salty, as he decided to call it a career.
4x Pro Bowl OLB Anthony Barr is retiring after 10 NFL seasons.
— Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) August 5, 2025
The former top-10 pick of the #Vikings started 108 games during his outstanding career. pic.twitter.com/42N4geR22w
Former Vikings LB Anthony Barr Expected to Retire
According to NFL insider Jordan Schultz, former Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr is expected to announce his retirement. Barr became a legend in Minnesota after he was selected with the ninth overall pick in the 2014 NFL Draft, registering 496 total tackles, 39 tackles for loss, 17.5 sacks, five interceptions, 31 pass defenses, eight forced fumbles, and eight fumble recoveries over nine seasons. But Packers fans will remember him as the player that broke Rodgers’s collarbone in October 2017.
The play happened early in the game when Barr hit Rodgers just as he was rolling out and attempting a pass on Green Bay’s opening drive. Barr put his weight into the tackle and injured Rodgers after driving him to the ground, and it became a controversial moment in the Vikings-Packers rivalry.
Rodgers later claimed that Barr taunted him after the hit while Barr claimed Rodgers started the altercation. Either way, the play had a massive impact on the 2017 season. While Green Bay entered the game with a 4-1 record, the hit sidelined Rodgers for the rest of the year, and the Packers lost seven of their final 10 games to finish at 7-9.
The Vikings took advantage of the hit to win their second division title in the past three years and advance to the NFC Championship Game, but their luck ran out when they were destroyed by the Philadelphia Eagles in a 38-7 loss.
In the aftermath of the play, the NFL put in a rule to protect quarterbacks that makes it illegal for a defender to put his weight into a tackle and drive the quarterback into the ground. But it didn’t come in time for Barr not to be a pain in Green Bay’s side, logging 77 total tackles with a sack and five quarterback hits in 16 career games.
Barr finished up his career with a one-year stint with the Dallas Cowboys in 2022 and a four-game cameo for the Vikings in 2023. But that hit makes him one of Green Bay’s biggest villains.