Aaron Rodgers is having a terrible week thanks to Jordan Love and the Packers

For Love and the Green Bay Packers, this is not how the 2023 NFL season was supposed to go.

Four years ago, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst gambled his career on a risky wager. Following a season in which the Packers made it to the NFC Championship Game, Gutekunst traded up in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft to select Utah State's Jordan Love — an unproven developmental quarterback.

The move sent shockwaves throughout the league and was met with skepticism within Green Bay's locker room. In particular, it drew the ire of quarterback Aaron Rodgers, one of the greatest players in Green Bay's storied franchise history. That move created a schism between Gutekunst and Rodgers.

Motivated by the drafting of his potential replacement, Rodgers would go on to win the NFL's Most Valuable Player award in back-to-back seasons. Still, Gutekunst decided to double down on his bet: he traded away the future Hall of Fame quarterback to the New York Jets, electing to enter the 2023 NFL season with Love at the helm of his offense instead.

The Packers success with Jordan Love doesn't make Aaron Rodgers look good

With the addition of Rodgers, the Jets became a offseason media darling. They were the trendy pick to win the Super Bowl — a downtrodden franchise rescued from the cellars of NFL hierarchy by a savior quarterback. Expectations were that Rodgers and the Jets — not Gutekunst and the Packers — would make a deep playoff push. The Packers were expected to unravel. Gutekunst envisioned a season that was more about developing the future of the franchise than it was about winning right now.

Instead, Rodgers played just four snaps in a Jets uniform before suffering a season-ending Achilles injury that sent the Jets' season into a tailspin.

His former team, meanwhile, has moved on without skipping a beat. The Packers dismantled the Dallas Cowboys in a shocking 48-32 victory during Wild Card weekend, and Love had three passing touchdowns in his first career playoff game.

“Man, Jordan Love, wow,” Packers head coach Matt LaFleur said after the game. “That’s about all I can say is ‘wow.'”

Ahead of the Divisional Round matchup against Green Bay, San Francisco 49ers pass rusher Nick Bosa poured some salt in Rodgers' wounds with a back-handed complimented.

"[The Packers have] a quarterback who does exactly what he’s coached to do," Bosa said. "Aaron Rodgers is a Hall of Famer ... but he kinda went outside of the realm of coaching and sometimes it’s good when you have a guy who does what he’s coached to do.”

Love's rapid rise to success has stirred whispers about whether Rodgers was holding the Packers back from a championship. As ridiculous as that may sound, expect those whispers to get a lot louder if the Packers win their Divisional Round matchup against the San Francisco 49ers — a team that constantly humiliated Rodgers in the postseason.

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