Packers, Aaron Rodgers Must Win Another Super Bowl to Make the Drama Worth It

So Tuesday was a day in the National Football League.

Two of the biggest pieces in this year's quarterback carousel fell. One in a blockbuster deal that may go down as the most impactful trade in league history. The other in less dramatic fashion: The league's two-time defending MVP decided to stay put.

The agreement to send Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos was a stunner in every sense of the word, but it was a lot less surprising that Aaron Rodgers decided to stick with the Green Bay Packers, who have won 13 games in each of the past three seasons.

That return ended a soap opera regarding Rodgers' future that began the moment Green Bay was stunned at home by the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional playoffs. But in many ways, the move carries the same expectations as Denver's massive gamble on Wilson.

There is one thing and one thing only that will justify Green Bay's commitment—and all the roster moves that will come after it.

Winning Super Bowl LVII.

That Rodgers will be back is settled. The specifics, however, are not.

Ian Rapoport of NFL Network tweeted that Rodgers and the Packers had agreed on a four-year, $200 million extension that included a whopping $153 million in guarantees.

Rodgers refuted the report, however, confirming his return but disputing the terms.

In any event, it's a good day to be a Cheesehead.

There had been speculation galore that Rodgers would be involved in a blockbuster trade this offseason. But at the NFL Scouting Combine, Green Bay general manager Brian Gutekunst said the team had not received a single offer for the 38-year-old. For his part, head coach Matt LaFleur said that while he'd of course prefer to have Rodgers lead his offense again, he wasn't going to attempt to influence Rodgers' decision.

"I told him, I don't wanna be overbearing and tell him every day how much we love him and how much we want him back," LaFleur said. "So you just wanna be respectful of his space and allow him to think through everything clearly without being annoying, I guess."

Apparently, the two sides hashed out whatever differences may have existed.

That's just the beginning. The Packers will be in scramble mode over the next week, trying to hold the team together around Rodgers and star wide receiver Davante Adams, who was assigned a franchise tag that would pay the 29-year-old $20.5 million.

Per Over the Cap, no team is in worse shape relative to the salary cap.

The Pack will undoubtedly try to sign Adams to a more team-friendly extension. High-priced players such as edge-rusher Za'Darius Smith, left tackle David Bakhtiari and cornerback Jaire Alexander will probably be asked to restructure their contracts to free up space. There may well be a cap casualty or two.

Then Green Bay has to try to re-up its other free agents: linebacker and leading tackler De'Vondre Campbell, cornerback Rasul Douglas, wide receivers Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Allen Lazard and tight end Robert Tonyan.

Then there's the future of quarterback Jordan Love. If Rodgers' extension is anywhere close to the terms Rapoport disclosed, it's just about impossible to believe that Love—whom Gutekunst moved up in Round 1 to draft in 2020—won't be traded. The only question is where and for what.

The Pack have their quarterback, No. 1 wideout, a potent duo at running back in Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon and a solid offensive line. But there's still plenty of uncertainty.

What is certain is that unless Green Bay puts the "title" back in Titletown, then all the drama over the past year-plus will have been for naught.

And even with Rodgers, there's no guarantee the Packers will reach the mountaintop.

To be clear, Rodgers' talent and resume are unquestionable. Last year's MVP award was his fourth—only Peyton Manning has more. Rodgers threw 37 touchdown passes to just four interceptions. He has thrown almost five times as many touchdown passes as interceptions in his career, has a career passer rating of 104.5 (highest in NFC history) and sports a staggering regular-season record of 139-66-1.

If he retired tomorrow, Rodgers would be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. There's no question the Packers are exponentially better with him than without him.

But for all that success, Rodgers has played in one Super Bowl, and that was 11 years ago. He has excellent numbers in the postseason as well—45 touchdowns to 13 interceptions and a 100.1 passer rating. But the Packers are just 11-10 in the playoffs under Rodgers and 1-4 in NFC Championship Games. Last season, Green Bay scored a touchdown on its first possession against San Francisco—and then didn't score another.

Matt Ludtke/Associated Press

Rodgers certainly doesn't bear all the responsibility for those disappointments—football is a team game, and the Green Bay special teams bore the brunt of the blame for this last loss. But as longtime Packers beat writer Bob McGinn stated (via Peter King of NBC Sports), Rodgers' aversion to making mistakes could be as much curse as blessing.

"Rodgers ... for years has played a careful, calculating game understanding that number of interceptions plays a disproportionate, nonsensical role in the passer-rating formula. Bad interceptions are, well, bad. Then there are interceptions that are the cost of doing business for unselfish, competitive, stats-immune quarterbacks battling to make plays and lead comebacks until the bitter end. When a quarterback, especially one with a powerful, usually accurate arm like Rodgers, deliberately minimizes chances to deliver a big play for fear of an interception ... that's just hurting his team. In the playoff game, a modest talent like Jimmy Garoppolo was under every bit as much pass-rush pressure as Rodgers but drilled more tight-window completions down the field largely because he wasn't afraid of a pick and the moment."

That pedestrian playoff game against the Niners (225 passing yards, zero touchdowns) was the final chapter in a roller-coaster campaign for Rodgers. Yes, he was the regular-season MVP. But that was after a similarly dramatic offseason in which he reportedly clashed with Gutekunst. And the in-season controversy about his COVID-19 vaccination status (and whether he intentionally misled people about it).

It's drama on top of drama on top of drama. And the soap opera isn't going to stop now that Rodgers has returned (again). If anything, it will ramp up.

Barring financial finagling of epic proportions, the 2022 Packers aren't going to be as good on paper as they were in 2021. That isn't to say Green Bay won't be among the NFC favorites again—the Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams have similar cap constraints and free-agent issues, and teams such as the 49ers, Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals have talent and question marks in equal measure.

But the spotlight on Rodgers and the Packers will be even brighter and harsher than it was a year ago, after the first "will he, or won't he?" offseason. Expectations will be sky-high. Every setback will be front-page news. Every mistake will be magnified.

And if Rodgers continues to court controversy off the field, Twitter may have to add extra servers.

The Packers and their fans got what they wanted. They got their MVP quarterback back. But his return isn't a panacea.

And unless Rodgers can finally get over the hump, shake off the perception that he can't win when the stakes are highest (a criticism that was once also levied at Manning) and get Green Bay another Super Bowl win, the time may come a year or two from now when those same fans wonder if it all was worth it.