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Aaron Rodgers evading the pass rush from his potential future team, the San Francisco 49ers.
As the San Francisco 49ers‘ fanbase currently parses the report by Ian Rapoport that John Lynch has fielded calls about his soon-to-be third-year quarterback Trey Lance, rumors are abound that another signal-caller, a native of California and a player who spent his college career in the Bay Area by the name of Aaron Rodgers, might be considering other options after a trade to the New York Jets has yet to materialize. Discussing the rumors surrounding Rodgers’ hypothetical return to The Bay, Tiki Barber reported on his “Tiki & Tierney ” show that there might be a kernel of truth under all of the smoke.
“All of this little simmering, it’s not even like smoke coming out of this thing, it’s just a little crinkling of flames starting to burgeon up under the leaves about Aaron Rodgers actually going to the 49ers as opposed to the Jets now has some validity,” Barber noted via Outkick.
“If they trade Trey Lance and Brock Purdy isn’t available to play this year because of UCL surgery, Sam Darnold is not, I promise you, is not starting for the 49ers. They will go get, and they’re okay to mortgage their future because they don’t care, they’re not worried about losing their jobs. They’ve done it before. They’ve gotten to the championship game, they’ve gotten deep in the playoffs. This team will go get Aaron Rodgers if he’s available, and the Jets, the premise we started this with, will be stuck sitting out in the cold with their underwear on, and that’s it.”
Could Barber’s theory actually come to fruition? If the 49ers do, in fact, trade Lance and then decide that Purdy and Danrold aren’t the right combinations to lead the team to the Super Bowl, could Lynch make a call to Brian Gutekunst and work out a deal that mortgages some of the 49ers’ future for a short-term return? Potentially so, especially since the 49ers have a first-round pick in the 2024 NFL draft, and the Jets aren’t looking to give theirs up for the four-time MVP.
The San Francisco 49ers Could Benefit From the Jets’ Gridlock
Discussing the reasons why the Jets haven’t landed Rodgers in a trade just yet, Brian Costello of the New York Post explained what has been holding up the deal between New York and the Green Bay Packers.
“The sticking point in the negotiations remains the Packers’ demand that the Jets include their 2024 first-round pick in any deal,” Costello wrote. “As the Packers see it, Rodgers is a four-time MVP, and the Jets clearly feel he will make their team a contender.
“The Jets do not want to exchange an unconditional first-round pick for a player who will turn 40 on Dec. 2 and who may not play for the Jets in 2024. The Jets’ preference is to send Green Bay a conditional 2024 pick, a second-day pick that can become a first-round choice if certain conditions are met. It is unknown what conditions the Jets are putting forth. Examples of such a condition would be: If the Jets go to the AFC Championship game, then the pick would become a first-rounder, or if Rodgers wins an MVP, it would become a first-round pick.
“If either side concedes on the 2024 draft pick, this deal can happen quickly.”
In the NFL, trading away conditional picks one season into the future that either go up or down based on some sort of incentive has increasingly become the norm, with both of the Carson Wentz trades, from Philadelphia to Indianapolis and from Indianapolis to Washington, both featuring escalators based on playing time. If the Jets are only willing to give up a conditional pick, but the 49ers are willing to surrender a first-round pick with new strings attached plus 2023 compensation, Barber’s reported “little crinkling of flames” may grow bigger and brighter.
Aaron Rodgers Is Rumored to Only Have Eyes for the Jets
With conversations stalling between the Jets and Rodgers’ camps, rumors have been running wild about the trade, including one in particular that has been gaining steam from the account NFL Notifications on Twitter.
“Packers QB Aaron Rodgers has told his agent its either Jets or nothing. Things could change, but this is not good for Green Bay,” NFL Notifications wrote. “They can: A) Trade Rodgers for whatever the Jets are willing to give and still pay him $40M. B) Rodgers can retire, and they still pay him $40M C) Rodgers can be Jordan Love’s back-up and force Green Bay to pay $68M.”
Is NFL Notifications necessarily the most reliable source? Not per se, but many of the top Jets blogs have begun to aggregate the report as yet another layer in the Jets-Rodgers saga, making the tweet very interesting in its own right even if the Chico, California-born quarterback ends up in another uniform this fall.
