We know that Aaron Rodgers is hell-bent on playing football somewhere in 2025. What we don't know exactly where that might be.
Sure, Rodgers' two years with the New York Jets were more or less an abject disaster in every sense of the word. But this is still a future Hall of Famer who won his fourth NFL MVP award three years ago; given how desperate the league is for quarterback talent, surely some team would jump at the chance to sign him for a year or two, right?
Not so fast. The New York Jets have already washed their hands of Rodgers, the Los Angeles Rams eventually came to their senses and just paid Matthew Stafford, and now it seems like no one's quite sure where Rodgers will play next season — or if anyone will ask him to play at all.
Aaron Rodgers might be out of luck in NFL free agency
At least that's the picture painted by ESPN's Adam Schefter, who appeared on "Get Up" this morning to offer the latest on how Rodgers' market is shaping up ahead of the legal tampering period. Spoiler alert: not very well.
"Listen, his best option dried up when Matthew Stafford went back to the Rams," Schefter said, describing L.A.'s lack of interest as the "worst-case scenario" for a quarterback who already has a home in Southern California and is presumably looking for a spot to contend for a Super Bowl in 2025.
But while it's no surprise that Rodgers would have had interest in the Rams job had it come open, what is very much a surprise is that other QB-needy teams around the league don't appear to have much interest in him. The New York Giants were the most recent team to hop aboard the Rodgers rumor mill, but Schefter describes them as "in play, but not a lock" as they consider other options like Russell Wilson and Sam Darnold.
"So if it's not New York, where is it? I don't see Aaron Rodgers in Indianapolis or Cleveland or Tennessee. I don't know that I see him in Las Vegas. And there are not an abundance of options. Aaron Rodgers' best option may just be to wait and see if there's a quarterback injury, a quarterback issue, a quarterback situation that we don't see today on March 6th that could materialize on March 16th or April 16th."
That's a pretty grim picture, but it's also hard to find too much fault with it. Sure, New York might be in the market for a veteran even if they take a quarterback in the first round, but is Rodgers and his baggage really the best fit to serve as a bridge to the future? And why would Rodgers want to play out the string for a Giants team that isn't competing any time soon, or for the Browns or Titans for the matter? Rodgers has been teetering on the edge of being not worth the trouble for a while now, and it feels like he's finally fallen on the wrong side of that line. QBs always manage to find a home at some point in the NFL, but he might have to wait for someone to get well and truly desperate.