Recently, sports media mouths such as Brett Favre and just recently Max Kellerman, have been hinting and embracing Aaron Rodgers’ would-be decision to join the Chicago Bears. After the Packers elected to use their first round pick to further the process of moving Rodgers out of town, when they drafted QB Jordan Love.
At first glance, what’s there not to love?
You have an all-decade, or even all-time great wanting to get revenge on his own team for doing him dirty, by joining a rival and certain Super Bowl contender.
Why, the love at first sight for Bears fans and the idea of Rodgers coming to the Bears is merely fools gold.
Before digging into my thoughts on Rodgers, which are objective, let’s talk about the cold hard facts. Aaron Rodgers is currently 36 years old and will be 38 years old at the time of his next chance to opt out and play for a different team, assuming there will not be a trade.
How willing are you to dedicate the next 4-5 years of your franchise to a quarterback of that age, when you could be developing a younger QB with more upside and a price that is far less?
Where do I stand on Rodgers’ skill set at the minute?
I do think that Rodgers is an all-time great and a surefire top-five QB this world has ever seen. That being said, his best days are far behind him and he has yet to come to terms with that, and put his ego aside for the betterment of the team. Aaron Rodgers for the past two years has come out onto the field trying to be Superman, when all his team needs is Clark Kent, by leaving plays on the field by sacrificing easy yardage for a hopeful highlight reel play. Which was a habit he couldn’t seem to break in the game where the Packers almost let the Lions sneak one out on them as they snuck out with the win with a measly three point lead.
If you’re reading this, you’re probably thinking to yourself: “Why should I care, this is only one game and everyone has bad games”, well even in his best performance he struggled to take what was given to him in one of his best showings. Rodgers threw for 429 yards and five touchdowns vs the Raiders in what seemed to be yet another “Aaron Rodgers-like game”, but even then, he was still leaving yards on the field when his offensive play caller Matt LaFleur was dialing haymaker after haymaker and quite frankly, he was landing them, on a Tampa-2 killer, where LaFleur had 2 men running down the field practically wide open
Rodgers ultimately opted to not follow the game-plan and throw to a Geronimo Allison for a gain that was merely pennies on the dollar to what the play could have been. Even in Alex Rollins’ recent video where he went in depth and dissected Rodgers’ tape he came to the conclusion that the “Film and Analytics both agree” that Rodgers is no longer elite. In fact Rodgers scored rather poorly on a stat that measures how much a quarterback is adding to a play, based on what they expect the team to do and how much they are expected to gain on that play by running simulations based on field positioning and past play calls. Rodgers scores below league average in both 2017 and 2018 which further proves my thesis that Rodgers’ best days are behind him.
What should the Bears do?
I firmly believe that they should give Mitchell Tribusky one more ride by giving him the job, for him to lose, and if he does lose it then draft a QB in the upcoming draft to sit behind Foles for a full year to learn the layers of the beautiful Matt Nagy passing attack. This QB in my opinion should be Trey Lance, a perfect scheme fit with great tape, but that’s a story for another day.
Photo: EssentiallySports
