Let’s start with the obvious; if Aaron Rodgers leaves the Green Bay Packers, they’re in trouble. Of course, they’re in trouble if he stays, too.
Rodgers’ future is, for better or for worse, the forecast for what comes next in Green Bay after another disappointing early exit from the playoffs. But even if he stays, the Packers are going to shed talent. General Manager Brian Gutekunst will be tasked with wrangling a roster currently slated to clock in around $40 million over next season’s salary cap. Only the New Orleans Saints, perpetually locked within a salary cap hell of their own design, have a worse-looking cap sheet for 2022 (-$70m, somehow).
This makes the Packers’ future — both immediate and long term — about so much more than the 38-year-old, media-trolling signal caller who has spent the last 17 years in Wisconsin. Gutekunst will have to figure out how to shore up the faults that have led to embarrassing playoff losses the last three years — bad rushing defense, limited wideout depth, woefully incompetent special teams — while finding a way to hopefully retain the services of pending free agents like Davante Adams, De’Vondre Campbell, Robert Tonyan, Rasul Douglas, Marquez Valdes-Scantling, and Allen Lazard.
There are several moving parts at play, and while extensions, converted roster bonuses, and restructured contracts will help ease that burden there’s still a massive job to be done. Green Bay’s latest early playoff exit only adds to the pressure of getting it right. 2022 may be a crossroad for the organization; its place atop the NFC North hinges on what comes next.
So what will that entail?