Aaron Rodgers intends to play for Jets: What it means for Packers to have Jordan Love headline the show

Aaron Rodgers publicly tore the bandage off the uncertainty surrounding his NFL career on The Pat McAfee Show Wednesday, revealing his “intent to play for the New York Jets.” That means Green Bay Packers quarterback general manager Brian Gutekunst moved up four picks to pick 26th overall in the 2020 NFL Draft, Jordan Love, who will be the team’s full-time pick.

Love has huge shoes to fill, as Rodgers is the team’s all-time leading in passing touchdowns with 475, won a Super Bowl and a Super Bowl MVP, won four NFL MVPs (the second most in league history) and fielded the top touchdown -to-interception ratio in NFL history (4.52, 475-105) during his 18 seasons at Green Bay (15 as a starter), also making Rodgers the team’s longest-serving player.

“I’m hands down the best player in franchise history, I’m definitely in the conversation,” Rodgers said Wednesday on The Pat McAfee Show. “There’s no disputing that I’m the longest-serving Packer in team history… Nobody’s bled like me.”

However, the future first-choice Hall of Famer has every confidence that his successor will end up following a career path similar to the one he embarked upon following in the footsteps of Hall of Famer Brett Favre — a great one.

“They’re ready to move on with Jordan, that’s great,” Rodgers said. “Jordan will be a great player. He’s a damn great boy. He’s had a really great year this year and has been getting better and better on the Look team [scout team]. He has a bright future ahead of him. They have a good young team… They are ready to move on and so am I.”

Green Bay’s other Aaron, Jones (the team’s Pro Bowl running back), also expressed his confidence in Love on Feb. 12.

“It’s hard to replace someone like that [Rodgers]’ Jones said. “But I think if that should happen, Jordan is definitely ready.”

The football world got a glimpse of what Rodgers was talking about when he mentioned Love’s growth as head of Green Bay’s scout team in Week 12 of the 2022 season. The Packers were playing eventual NFC champion Eagles on Sunday Night Football in Philadelphia when Rodgers went down with a rib injury in the fourth quarter. The 24-year-old backup came in to start his first drive of the game with the Eagles leading 37-23 with 11-11 to play.

Fulfilling the Packers’ wish that he be handsome, Love completed each of his first three passes: a five-yarder for running back AJ Dillion, a seven-yard gain for wide receiver Allen Lazard, and then the big one: a 63 -yard touchdown for rookie wideout Christian Watson. The shot on goal was set up by Love’s execution of the play-action fake, which caused him to wind up and fire an arrow that allowed Watson to leave his defender in the dust. 37-30, a new nine-minute ball game.

After the Eagles burned at 6:44 with their next drive, which ended in a field goal, Love led a second scoring drive that ended in a 33-yard field goal from Mason Crosby. Scored ten points in two love-led drives. Those two drives also made Love’s opponent, Eagles Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay, believe that night.

“As a defense, we feel great when A-Rod goes out,” Slay said on his Nov. 30 Big Play Slay podcast. “This is one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. So if he goes out we have to go. The D-Line gets a little hungrier because they know they can get it behind the quarterback with a young buck coming in because A-Rod on the line of scrimmage has a lot of controls and communication performs, that’s difficult to dismiss young buck [Jordan Love] comes and actually does a very, very solid job. Green Bay has a bright, bright future ahead of it, like a bright because mate [Love] threw it.

“I won’t lie that it looked demure like A-Rod the way he is [Love] learned a lot,” Slay continued. “It should be a blessing for him to be behind a GOAT and learn at a high level like that. He’s also a talented kid, he’s a first-round draft pick, he’s got a lot of talent. He just has to bid his time like A-Rod bided Brett Favre. His time will come and you can see the gunslinger mentality he had just like him [Rodgers]. With the quick release and the flick, by raising the back leg, he is [Love] copy and paste it [Rodgers] for sure. That’s a great player [Rodgers] to copy and paste.”

With the Packers and Rodgers now going their separate ways, here’s what Green Bay’s offense could look like with No. 10 taking the snaps instead of No. 12.

A return to Matt LaFleur’s offensive roots, the Mike Shanahan principles

“Sometimes I didn’t quite understand what we were doing on offense and my job was to take care of the football and I did that [in 2019] … But I felt like there was so much more to it,” Aaron Rodgers said on March 2 on the “Aubrey Marcus Podcast” while discussing what it was like in their first year together on offense from head coach Matt LaFleur to play. “And then her [the Packers] drafted my successor and was twice MVP.”

LaFleur brought an offense to Green Bay diametrically opposed to former head coach Mike McCarthy’s West Coast offense, which Rodgers has mastered for 13 seasons. The Packers were in shotgun formation 52.8% of the time from 2006 through 2018, the third-highest rate in the NFL. LaFleur’s system is a derivative of what Mike Shanahan led as head coach of the Denver Broncos for 14 seasons (1995-2008) and clinched two Super Bowls. The Shanahan offense is built around lining up under center, distracting football from zone-blocking schemes, using regular pre-snap moves, and playing passing actions.

In short, an offensive scheme designed to make a quarterback’s life easier by allowing them to more easily diagnose a defense by using many similar formations, making the run and pass look the same. That way, a quarterback can rely on pre-snap motion and play-action plays to find receivers to throw at without having to think as much. Rodgers, one of the best in NFL history at pre-snap audibles and quick identification of mismatches, has on many occasions called the West Coast offense “the most beautiful offense in football” because of its ease of where the Quarterback easily moves from one course to another with much more decision making on the shoulders of the passer than on the shoulders of his coaches.

In 2019 he had an efficient but underperforming season. He threw for 26 touchdowns and four interceptions while rushing for just over 4,000 passing yards in his freshman year with LaFleur. Rodgers thrived in 2020 and 2021, winning back-to-back NFL MVPs while the Packers went 26-6 in his starts. Those 26 wins are the most in the NFL during those two seasons with the Kansas Chiefs, with Patrick Mahomes starting at quarterback. He also led the entire league in the 2020 and 2021 seasons in passing touchdowns (85), touchdown-to-interception ratio (85-9), and passer rating (116.7).

During Rodgers’ return to peak performance in those consecutive MVP seasons, the team leaned into the under-center lineup 40.5% of the time, the 10th-highest rate in the NFL. It looked more like LaFleur’s offense — with the head coach calling the team’s offensive plays and Rodgers mostly sticking with them — resulted in an incredibly more efficient offense.

Packers offensive ranking under Matt LaFleur since 2019

* Aaron Rodgers won consecutive NFL MVPs

However, Rodgers and the Packers simultaneously struggled as they strayed from the offensive pillars of going under center and utilizing play actions. Because the 2022 season featured both the lowest under-center (31.1%) and play-action rates (15.2%) of LaFleur’s four-year tenure at Green Bay, the Packers went 8-9 and missed for the playoffs head coach for the first time under her current position. A stark contrast to the Packers’ three consecutive 13-season wins, the only streak of its kind in NFL history. Rodgers also had a career-worst single-season passer rating of 91.1 in 2022 after he and the team transitioned to his preferred playstyle and embraced LaFleur’s offensive style, more shotgun, and more route progressions based on his ability left the field.

Aaron Rodgers in 2022

“There are certain things that could play out a little differently situationally, but we obviously give Aaron liberty to take us out of sight, particularly situationally, based on what the defense is presenting, for many reasons,” LaFleur said mid-week 2022 season when Green Bay started 3-6. “I have absolute faith and trust that he will put the guys in the best place. When it doesn’t work, it’s easy to question everything. That is the nature of our business, a results-driven business.”

Then, when pressed about what the specific issues with the team’s offensive struggles were, LaFleur bluntly assessed the issues. The head coach shared the blame “collectively” and chose not to blame Rodgers for likely being audible from his playcalls.

“Obviously he didn’t put the guys in the right spots,” LaFleur said when asked what he’s doing differently after the team won 13 games in each of his first three seasons as head coach. “Together everyone could be a little better and we have to do it to win games. It’s unfortunate that we’re in this situation, but we are.”

It’s also an unfortunate situation that Rodgers won’t be retiring after donning just one Green Bay Packers jersey in his legendary career. LaFleur is likely bringing his Packers offense back to its roots with Love, more under center and play action utilization, and trying to fool opposing defenses into thinking they’re running the ball when it’s really a passing play , and vice versa.

Despite Aaron Rodgers having the longest relationship with the Packers in NFL history at 18 seasons, the franchise is undergoing yet another transformation with the decision to transition to a new flame in quarterback Jordan Love.