Green Bay Packers GM Ted Thompson made decision to sit out Aaron Rodgers Week 16

The Green Bay Packers are rolling with Matt Flynn yet again this week against the Pittsburgh Steelers and it’s a decision that has a lot of people around the NFL talking. The Packers are confident that they can win with Flynn under center on Sunday but what everyone really wants to know is who’s call was it to sit Rodgers in this pivotal game?

Mike McCarthy has been taking a lot of heat in recent days and so have the Packers doctors, but ESPN’s Rob Demovsky reports that it was actually team president Ted Thompson who made the final call to sit Rodgers in Week 16.

This is an interesting fact that needs a lot more attention than it’s getting. The Green Bay Packers are a publicly owned team, which means they don’t have an owner to have final say over everyone else. They do have a general manager in Ted Thompson but the responsibilities of an owner aren’t on him the way they are on Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder — because Thompson’s not the Packers owner.

Mike Florio points as much out in his column blasting the Packers public ownership which robs it of the ability to have one guy say yes or no to the decisions made underneath him. That’s really the highlight of the Aaron Rodgers mess as it’s clear he wants to play and it’s clear he thinks he’s ready. If the Packers had an actual owner, as Florio states, then it’s hard to see a situation where Rodgers isn’t playing this week.

It’s hard to determine what is the bigger deal here, Rodgers not playing or Rodgers not playing because the Packers entire front office is standing around shrugging shoulders and pointing to the next person when asked if they’re okay with Rodgers playing this week.

Fans owning the team is a cool concept until an actual decision needs to be made like starting or sitting the franchise quarterback with a broken collarbone. It’s situations like that where having a guy with authority is kind of nice.