Mike Garafolo
@MikeGarafolo
Aaron Rodgers just went in on Sean Payton in a sitdown with
@PSchrags
on NFL+. It ended with Rodgers saying Payton needs to “keep my coach’s name out of his mouth.”
As a Packers fan, this off-season post trade has been incredibly refreshing. There have been remarkably few stories about the Packers in local news, and the ones that are there are actually about football and comment on things the Packers and their players have been doing to prepare to play football.
No manufactured drama. No one publicly dragging anyone in the media. No bitching. No witch doctor girlfriends. No peru drug runs. No roster construction beefs. No nothing. Just...football.
Once in a while I stumble on a story like this that is just absurd and such obvious reaction baiting and think dang, I'm glad this chucklehead isn't our problem anymore.
He was one of my favorite players ever. Will never take away from what he brought to the team at his peak. But whatever happened to this dude his ego outgrew the team and I'm very happy he can ply this kind of stupidity somewhere else from now on.
The thing is, people here have been mentally preparing for life without Rodgers for a long time, football wise. And whatever his stats might say, those of us who have watched every game since he's been in the league have seen the decline. We've seen the unwillingness to adjust his game to accommodate the changes in his body.
What the last 5 years but particularly the least 2 years have made apparent is that Rodgers was never going to win another championship here. And no matter what happens, we were only a couple short years from moving on from him anyway. This just allowed us to have that happen at least somewhat on our own terms.
If he manages to win one with the Jets, more power to him. If he manages to win one I wonder if he'll ponder at all whether showing up for OTAs, working with the front office instead of ignoring them, and taking a gigantic pay cut had a role in the success.
People here don't take what Rodgers gave us for granted. He's one of my favorite players ever. And I don't expect we'll ever know what all happened behind closed doors. But the relationship with the Packers and Rodgers had got to the point that he was only in it for himself and that was never going to result in success. In fact it resulted in one of the worst seasons in recent memory last year. Most of us know that might be coming football wise and we're excited that we at least won't have the drama.