June 8th Mandatory OTA begins

The Fan 107.5@WDUZ
Jordan Love taking nearly every snap so far has struggled. Over throwing his receivers on short and intermediate routes. Only 1 deep ball and he over shot MVS


Rodgers and his agent sees this they be like.

 
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@ZachHeilprin
wouldn't say if they excused Rodgers' absence from minicamp. Said he is naturally optimistic and they'll continue to try and remedy the situation with the QB.


@RobDemovsky
Matt LaFleur on Jordan Love taking the majority of the team reps: "He needs every rep he can get right now. He's a young quarterback that was not afforded a preseason last year. Give him as many as he can handle. I just think every rep he takes is so valuable and he can learning something from the good and the bad." Jordan Love struggled with accuracy. 12-23 passing in team, including failed 2-minute drill.
 
Then I guess he sits out or retires.
He thinks he has the leverage, but he’s overplaying his hand if that’s what he thinks
 
dannobanano said:
Then I guess he sits out or retires.
He thinks he has the leverage, but he’s overplaying his hand if that’s what he thinks
Click to expand...
Just playing devils advocate on leverage.
- Rodgers knows the team invested big $$ in Bak and Jones to keep the core intact. Same with the Smiths (ok restructured but not released)
- He also knows or think that Love is not capable of winning now hence screwing up the plans

It’s a big game of who blinks first and if anyone. Risk is on both ends. I would not be at all shocked if he publicly asked for a trade prior to camp to force a response
 
More From the Dunne story>>>

All of this sure is a welcomed change of pace from everyone pleading Rodgers to return. As we wrote earlier last month, this is a defining moment for head coach Matt LaFleur in particular. It’s good to know the Packers are at least refusing to bend to Rodgers’ will. What a ridiculous precedent it’d set to fire a general manager — one of the best in football since taking over in 2018 — just because the quarterback demanded it. With a touch of humor, the CEO did a fine job here dismissing what is apparently the only solution Rodgers himself sees. (No, the league MVP didn’t deny that report in his chat with Kenny Maybe. If anything, he added fuel to that fire.)

Of course, they also need a plan. This whole thing starts to get real now.

Mandatory minicamp has begun and Rodgers is not in Green Bay.

The thinking here is the same it was exactly one month ago: Green Bay should deal Rodgers, accept its king’s ransom from Denver, Las Vegas, whoever and embrace Jordan Love. While it’s good to hear Murphy make it clear that Gutekunst isn’t going anywhere, he’s still publicly clinging to hope that Rodgers changes his mind and plays for the Packers this season. Very soon, the Packers absolutely must be decisive and run the organization on their terms.

They cannot be held hostage into training camp.

Nothing has changed all offseason and everyone Go Long has spoken to insists we shouldn’t expect any changes on Rodgers’ end into July…August… September.

“There’s nothing new. He’s not going back there,” one former member of the Packers front office says. “Unless they make serious changes to the front office, I doubt he’s going back.”

This source is not sure what the Packers’ plan is and warns that they shouldn’t be holding their breath right now.

“That dude is not going back. I’m telling you.”

And when asked if he believes Rodgers is legitimately willing to retire, he adds, “I wouldn’t put it past him. He’s got enough money to.”

For all of the pontificating on the matter every day since the bomb was dropped April 29, nothing’s changed between the two sides.

Here’s the thing, though. One factor has changed with time: The team dynamic.

Players are back in town. The 2021 season has commenced. The longer Rodgers insists he won’t play for the Packers and the longer the Packers try to clutch to any hope that he’ll change his mind, the more this all poisons the team itself. The more Rodgers leaves severe damage to the organization. This game of chicken will only hurt the Packers.

Players want to know what in the hell the plan is for 2021.

Players want some direction.

One veteran that spoke to Go Long on the condition of anonymity was blunt. He also does not expect Rodgers to show up by training camp and knows he’s not alone in wanting to see some decisiveness out of the franchise.

“We need to say, ‘F--- it, let’s go’ or he’s here,” says this player. “We don’t have time to be waiting around. We’re six weeks from training camp. How much longer are we waiting?”
Right now, management is publicly daring Rodgers to retire.

Yet this teammate echoes other sources in believing Rodgers would do exactly that if the Packers do not trade him.

“I don’t think that’s his first choice,” this player says, “but I don’t see him just biting the bullet.”

This second impression of Jordan Love has been quite impressive, too. This player says he’s gaining some more believers on the roster. Of course, there’s a massive difference between a quarterback throwing the ball on a practice field in shorts and facing third and 8… on Sunday night… in front of 70,000 screaming fans… with a linebacker screaming off the edge. But players saw a young, ultra-athletic QB with promise through OTAs. One player cited a deep throw in which Love rolled right and, on the run, gunned a bullet deep that whistled inches past a defender’s earhole.

Right here was the kind of throw the Packers were gambling on when they traded up for Love.

Right here was why the GM rolled the dice.

Teams perennially picking in the 20’s, like Green Bay, don’t have a shot at franchise quarterbacks in the top 10 so, in looking to ensure the long-term health of the team, Gutekunst took the QB who possessed glimmers of that Mahomesian, off-platform improvisation every team hunts for today. This is the silver lining in Rodgers’ holdout. This week, Love gets to work with his top four wide receivers all back at camp… including No. 1 wideout Davante Adams who’s smartly getting reps in with his potential QB in 2021.

The work Love put in with his private quarterbacks coach Steve Calhoun — who hung out with subscribers on the Happy Hour here — is starting to show.

“He just needs more confidence,” this veteran says. “He just needs more reps. I think he’ll be really good.”

The Packers can do wonders for that confidence, too, by accepting this stalemate for what it is and moving on.

Again, this does not need to be a period of total gloom and doom. It’s an opportunity.

The late Ted Thompson understood this. Thompson, a former Houston Oilers linebacker himself, a man who cut his teeth as the director of pro personnel under Ron Wolf, deserves eternal praise for grasping the team dynamic like he did back in the summer of 2008. When Brett Favre flew into Green Bay, when a quarterback who took the team within one pass of the Super Bowl made it clear he wanted to return, Thompson knew how important it was to carve a clear, concise direction for his entire team.

A man who said very little made it clear the Packers were behind Rodgers.

No way were all veterans on the roster all-in on Rodgers then. Not when Favre was fresh off a 4,155-yard, 28-touchdown, 13-3 season.
But Thompson operated then with conviction even if it earned him roughly a 4.5 percent approval rating. Murphy, one year on the job, let Thompson handle this defining moment in Packers history. Now Murphy, 14 years on the job, needs to let Gutekunst handle this.

And similar conviction in Love could go a long way.

Let’s not forget about those other 52 players, too. What a job Gutekunst has done since taking over a roster that got away from Thompson by ’18. You either believe this roster is a bunch of Joes that Rodgers made look good or you believe these players are damn good in their own right. As you all know, I fall in the latter.

  • Marquez Valdes-Scantling left corners in the dust in leading the NFL in yards per reception. He’s been through hell and back off the field, too.
  • AJ Dillon is built unlike any back in the league. He’s set to leave a pile of bodies in his wake this season.
  • Robert Tonyan caught 52 of the 59 passes thrown his way. Nobody in the NFL with at least 40 receptions had a better catch rate.
  • The offensive line may be the best in the NFL. This unit allowed only 20 sacks with a QB who tends to hold onto the ball to keep plays alive, while also paving the way for 2,118 rushing yards.
  • Of course, Aaron Jones and Davante Adams are stars.
What a situation for a 22-year-old quarterback to step into.

If the Packers are willing to call Rodgers’ bluff, well, good luck with that. When he’s dug in, he’s dug in. We’ll see. There’s always that sliver of a chance he returns and declares the media a bunch of clickbaiters but nobody I spoke to sees that as a realistic possibility. It’s gotten to this point for a reason. The last thing one player expects is for Rodgers to show up Day 1 of training camp with a big smile on his face. And, surely, the Packers know more than they’re letting on. After all, they’ve spent this offseason flying to California.

This isn’t about money. (They’ve offered him more than anyone.)

This isn’t about the roster. (This is arguably the best in the NFL.)

This is about something principled in the quarterback’s mind… as impossible-to-decipher as that “principle” may be. And since the Packers correctly will not fire Gutekunst, there are not any clear solutions on the table. As for this veteran’s interpretation of Murphy’s defense of the GM in that Q&A, he believes this was Murphy telling the world, “We don’t give a f--- if it’s Aaron Rodgers. We’re not going to just fire someone for somebody.”

He tries to think of a middle ground. He can’t.

“At this point,” this player says, “I don’t know what needs to get resolved to make Aaron happy.”

So, if you’re Green Bay, would you rather appear weak and plead Rodgers to return only for him to retire?

Or, if you’re Green Bay, would you rather appear decisive and take your silver platter of picks and players?


In theory, as many smart analysts have posited, the Packers could get more in a trade one year from now. But that’d also require an aligning of stars. They’d need Rodgers to a.) stay healthy and b.) perform near that MVP level and c.) hope to maintain an inkling of leverage with everybody on the planet knowing they’re trying to trade him. It’s hard to imagine a “Last Dance”-like sendoff here. Further, things could turn sideways — fast — if a quarterback who clearly doesn’t want to be a Packer is quarterbacking the Packers.

As talented as Aaron Rodgers is, life can go on.

All of this drama will only affect the culture of the team more with time. It should be noted, too, that Tom Brady didn’t skip minicamp when he was upset with the Patriots in 2018-19. Green Bay needs to take this seriously with LaFleur able to sell a clear direction to the team by Day 1 of training camp.

If not, the circus of ’08 will seem like nothing compared to 2021 even if the media is (absurdly) banned from the locker room.

The Packers had the cojones to draft Love. Now, the Packers need the cojones to play him.

Of course, we’d all have a clearer idea of the situation if Rodgers simply said what he wants himself. At least Favre made his intentions explicitly known to Greta Van Susteren on Fox News. All Rodgers did was praise everyone but Gutekunst and Murphy and declare “it’s about the people.” Whatever that means. Everyone was left to their own interpretations. Five seconds after that aired, a player on the Packers did call me with his instant reaction.

“He’s gone.”
Click to expand...
 
Good article, well besides the homer "best roster in the nfl" stuff...
 
Is it just me? Or is anyone else getting fed up with this GB vs ARod crap? I am sick of reading about it, talking about it, listening about not trading Rodgers away !

Makes you wonder, who runs the team ! Is it Murphy, Gute or the players ?

Last comment from me about Rodgers......don't trade him or kiss his bum. If he retires you have money to play with. If he sits out..hold that contract until it runs out and pay him crap.

Not that Rodgers would be at a loss for money but unless he wants to play again it will not happen til the contract ends.

I know many Packers fans were Ticked Off with Brett F but his actions were mild compared to this Rodgers action.

Bye Rodgers ! Don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out !
 
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