Aaron Rodgers is not dumb. Far from it. He’s a highly intelligent person. One thing people have also learned over the years? The superstar quarterback can hold grudges. Ask his family. If he feels you disrespected him, he’s going to hold it against you. It appears the Green Bay Packers failed to learn this lesson despite employing the man for 15 years. Otherwise, they would’ve seen what happened in March coming.

GM Brian Gutekunst probably thought drafting Jordan Love was no big deal last year. Everything would go in a similar way to what happened in 2005. Packers get a young gun with significant talent they can develop behind a Hall of Famer. Then in a couple of years, they turn the ship over to him. According to Tyler Dunne of Go Long, Gutekunst failed to understand the mistake he’d made until it was too late. Not long after that fateful pick, Rodgers began plotting his revenge.

Possibly now, there’s a window for someone else in the division to emerge. One league source indicated that after games last season, Rodgers was informing some opponents that he was trying to put a team together elsewhere in 2021 and wanted to know if they’d be in.

Rodgers has been that dug in since GM Brian Gutekunst selected Love in the first round of the 2020 draft.

“He was over it the minute they drafted Jordan Love,” says one league source who predicts the league MVP will end up in Vegas because Jon Gruden “would give up one of his kids to have Aaron Rodgers.”

If true, this move was a masterwork.

Rodgers plays the best season of his career in 2020, throwing 48 TDs to just five interceptions. He wins MVP honors for the third time and gets Green Bay just minutes from the Super Bowl. Then when everybody is feeling great about 2021’s prospects, word breaks that he is frustrated with the organization and doesn’t wish to continue playing in Green Bay as long as Gutekunst is GM.

This is brilliant for obvious reasons. If the Packers fire Gutekunst, it would be an appalling lack of backbone shown by ownership. That means they either have to trade him or he can simply retire. Either way, they lose one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL with no viable replacement on the roster. Rodgers caught them at the worst possible time, not giving them any chance to prepare contingency plans. Utterly ruthless.

 

Aaron Rodgers’ absence from #Packers OTAs is unsurprising — for multiple reasons. Long before the NFLPA’s move for a boycott, Rodgers argued during CBA talks last year for the elimination of all offseason activities prior to Aug. 1. Owners said no. @nflnetwork @NFLTotalAccess pic.twitter.com/ujdJH7CeYt

— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) May 24, 2021

Could Aaron Rodgers end up having second thoughts?

Sure. There is always that possibility. He stands to lose a lot of money if he decides to sit out. Then again it’s not like he needs money at this point. He’s made over a quarter billion dollars in his career, not counting sponsorships and the like. He has tons of career prospects in the media after football as well. Money isn’t going to be a problem for Rodgers. That just leaves loyalty to his teammates.

Based on what he was doing all last year, it would seem that isn’t at the forefront of his mind. Aaron Rodgers doesn’t owe anybody anything. He’s given that franchise nothing but brilliance for over a decade. To him, that Love selection last year was an outright slap in the face. He is not Brett Favre. He isn’t going to just suffer in silence. If Tom Brady could seize control of his own legacy, why can’t he?

The belief at this point is Rodgers’ exit is all but assured.

At least according to what Dunne has heard. One source told him that Green Bay is merely waiting for June 1st. That is when trading him would incur a far less steep dead money hit of around $14.35 million. Then the Packers will have to get used to life without a superstar QB for the first time in 30 years. That is unless Love suddenly fines a form he’s yet to show in practice thus far. Undoubtedly a moment Chicago Bears fans have awaited for a long time.