The tale of the outspoken Aaron Rodgers’ unorthodox method for his decision on the future is a wild one
Let’s face it. The Aaron Rodgers drama has been something of a whirlwind. With rumors of Rodgers retiring, to a trade to the New York Jets, this saga has seen it all. Rodgers denies all of it.
Or so he says as he heads to Southern Oregon for another one of his offseason retreats. The 39-year old quarterback became something of a national headline when he announced he would spend four days in complete darkness to contemplate his future. Rodgers checked into the Sky Cave, a resort in Oregon where he will be accompanied by nothing but a queen-size bed, a meditation mat, and pitch black.
The retreat comes at a critical point in Rodgers’ career. One where he’s coming off one of the worse years in his career since his rookie campaign in 2008. Anyone could look at a multitude of factors for his regression: age, a new offensive cast, and quite possibly the biggest reason– the departure of his number one receiver in Davante Adams. Whatever way you spin it, the facts are evident. Rodgers had one of his least productive seasons in 2023 of his 18-year career with the Green Bay Packers.
Rewind to just moments after a Week 18 loss to the Detroit Lions that abruptly ended Green Bay’s season, the Packers were faced with a choice. Glaring them right in the face was an enigma that drew eerie parallels to the tale of Brett Favre after the 2007 season. Move on from your vested veteran, or hope he stays to try and make another run? The Packers have repeatedly argued in favor of Rodgers, with the latest reports having the big stipulation that he must be “all in”.
Yet, their reassurance doesn’t hide the dilemma behind the scenes. The Packers are in the cap underworld. After their 2022 deal with Rodgers and his standoff, Green Bay is set to owe the quarterback $59.465 million in 2023 paired with a $31.6 million cap hit. Sitting on the sidelines is 2020 first round draft choice Jordan Love, who Green Bay chose to be Rodgers’ eventual successor much to both parties dismay. Love has threatened to request a trade if Green Bay brings Aaron Rodgers back which would leave the team without a contingency plan when Rodgers’ time is up in Green Bay.
On top of all the quarterback drama, the team has weak spots all across the board with veteran players set to hit free agency with $5.36 million in the hole in terms of cap space. Not exactly the ideal position. Several big name players on the team such as Adrian Amos, Allen Lazard, and Randall Cobb are all due to be on the open market with Lazard being upfront about his desire to be paid like a number one receiver.
If it feels like deja vu, that’s because it is. The origin of Rodgers’ discontent with Green Bay stems from the front office’s reluctance to sign key players that Rodgers expressed as people he wanted to keep around. Throughout the years, the team has gotten rid of some of his favorite duos, with Jordy Nelson in 2018, Randall Cobb and Jake Kumerow in 2020, and most recently bigwig Davante Adams in 2022.
The separation grew throughout the years until 2022, where Rodgers shot a proverbial shot across the bow with the threat of demanding a trade. The Packers caved and that led to today. Coming off an 8-9 season with a hodgepodge of veterans and young stars, Aaron Rodgers has emerged from his darkness retreat.
Rodgers cut it short, for unknown reasons, but it’s decision time in Green Bay. The quarterback has been infamously known for his unconventional modes of self-reflection. In 2020, Rodgers travelled to Peru to consume ayahuasca, a plant-based psychoactive used in indigenous ceremonies and traditional medicine. Aaron Rodgers has shown his love for these retreats, whether it be in the form of off-the-grid travel, visiting the Dalai Lama, or silent meditation retreats, the 2005 1st round draft pick spoke in defense of the retreat on The Pat McAfee Show, of which he is a usual guest.
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“I think we could all use a dose of turning our phones off once in a while and unplugging from society, some people don’t want to do a few days and nights of darkness, and that’s fine,” Rodgers said on the show. “But to out and out judge it like you have any understanding of it, that’s not exactly a way to come together as a society and connect better as a people.”
The aforementioned Sky Cave, owned by Skidmore College graduate Scott Berman sits in the middle of hundreds of acres of pure forest. The Sky Cave is able to host three guests on their resort, with their three ‘caves’, which resemble more along the lines of Harry Potter’s closet or the Bilbo Baggins’ Hobbit house.
Per ESPN, the retreat is booked out for the next eighteen months, with the number of individuals on the waitlists deep in the hundreds. An expansion is planned with an additional seven rooms in order to keep up with demand according to Berman.
The technique can be traced back to ancient rituals across the world, with the utilization of such found in every facet of the globe. The website mentioned the Ancient Greeks, Egyptians, and the Kogi– an indigenous group found in Colombia who have unique darkness sequences starting from their birth.
The method has been used by several world-renowned figures, including adventurer Colin O’Brady, who in 2018 completed a solo crossing of Antarctica. Brady’s entire MO is based off his will and mental toughness, which he has stated needs to be fostered throughout different vehicles.
“People always ask me what’s more important, the physical or the mental side of that?” O’Brady said. “If you take my first solo crossing of Antarctica … to be able to pull a 375-pound sled, 1 mile, let alone a thousand miles, there’s a minimum physical requirement for that.
“So of course, I train my body to get stronger to sustain the physical challenge of that. But I often say the physical side of that is just the table stakes. There are a lot of people that could pull that sled a certain amount of distance, but that basically just gets you to the starting line.”
In a 2023 article with ESPN, O’Brady was quoted as saying, “the most important muscle any of us have is the six inches between our ears.”
Rodgers’ commitment to mental excellence banks off his years being regarded as one of the greatest to ever play the game. Four NFL MVPs, a Lombardi Trophy, and numerous Pro Bowls adorn his trophy case. His downward trend in 2022 came off two dominant seasons under center for Green Bay. In 2020 he posted 4,299 yards en route to a MVP award. In 2021, he reprised his role as part of the NFL’s upper echelon with 4,115 yards enough to grant him his fourth of his career and the title of the fifth back-to-back MVP in NFL history.
Despite all his accolades, the quarterback has only gotten to the Super Bowl once, in 2010. Ever since then, Rodgers has been haunted by what can only be described as an eternal Super Bowl hex. Every year, Aaron Rodgers and in such, the Green Bay Packers seem to hit some sort of wall, whether it be in 2014’s NFC Championship Game where the Packers blew a 16-0 lead, or the 2021 49ers stonewall defense where Green Bay could only muster up 10 points.
Even with Rodgers’ darkness retreat, the trophies on his mantle, the various mishaps in the playoffs, the decision stands to be made. Moreover, the decision has to be mutual.
Because just as much as Aaron Rodgers holds the cards, it’s still Green Bay’s gambit. The team has explored options of trades, however with recent circumstances those avenues seem to be closing fast. Green Bay has ventured out into the NFL trade space, with rumors placing high emphasis on the New York Jets and the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Jets look to be just a keystone quarterback away from a deep run in the playoffs. The offense looked dangerous with Breece Hall and Garrett Wilson being emerging stars. Pair that with Jets’ owner Woody Johnson’s supposed openness to going all in for a quarterback, and you have a perfect trade destination.
When the Packers traded Davante Adams away prior to last season, a reunion between Rodgers and his prolific 8-year teammate seemed out of the water. Now, with the Raiders actively ridding themselves of Derek Carr, there’s a clear opening in Sin City. Carr was released and is looking to head to the Jets who told him he could be a first-ballot hall of famer in New York.
So that closes New York’s book.
Quiet whispers around the league say that the Raiders are quoted as, “not having an immediate answer at quarterback this year.” A disenchanting remark for Vegas fans who could’ve seen the second iteration of an unstoppable duo, one that scored 66 touchdowns over the span of 8 years in Green Bay.
The resembling of a trade seems even more likely when you take into account Rodgers’ apprentice is just about ready for primetime.
Packers running back Aaron Jones spoke highly of quarterback Jordan Love when asked about Rodgers’ return, “Us guys in the locker room, we know we control what we can control,” Jones said on the Around the NFL podcast. “Just focus on yourself, get the offseason started and going, and control what you can control. If he’s here, great, we love it. If he’s not, we’ll be sad. We’d lose one of our leaders, one of our great locker room guys. It’s hard to replace somebody like that. But I think if that was to happen, Jordan is definitely ready.”
During Love’s limited play time throughout the 2022 season, his progress and improvement have been apparent. When Aaron Rodgers went down with a rib injury during a Week 14 matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles, Love stepped in and looked impeccable against a stout Philly defense.
With just 10:32 left in the fourth quarter, Love orchestrated a quick-hitting touchdown drive showing poise and precision on an out route to Allen Lazard and a strike to Christian Watson who took it over 70 yards to the house.
Green Bay has a hidden gem in Jordan Love, one which has started to unearth its sheen after three years of being underneath the mud. Love is set to enter his fourth year with the Packers and is due to seek the fate of his fifth-year option.
While the duo of Aaron Rodgers and his heir apparent Jordan Love has looked to be a mystical duo in which the two have been cast as the star and the understudy respectively, it’s looking more and more like the Packers can’t have both.
If Rodgers stays, Love might pack his bags and request a trade. As a former first-round pick, being cooped up for nearly your entire rookie contract isn’t exactly the ideal situation. Yet, it’s exactly what Rodgers went through in the Favre era. Look past the concurrence and you’ll find a mutually exclusive deal where at least one person has to lose.
Rodgers has publicly said that he does not want to be part of a rebuild. Instead, he has demanded that the Packers retain key veterans, mainly along the lines of Allen Lazard, Robert Tonyan, and Randall Cobb.
Green Bay has taken steps towards pleasing Rodgers by signing Aaron Jones to a restructured contract in which Jones took a pay cut to clear out cap space for other signs. The Packers have even gone as far as to extend their hand to Allen Lazard who expressed disinterest in coming back to Green Bay following the Lions loss in Week 18.
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Despite Aaron Rodgers’ iconoclastic personality, consistently sparring with the team’s front office– he has shown a shred of unwavering loyalty to the city and the fans of Green Bay, “18 years man.. that [Green Bay] is always gonna be home,” Rodgers said on The Pat McAfee Show to McAfee and AJ Hawk.
With Aaron Rodgers, it’s an important distinction to make if Green Bay actually has a team worthy and capable of winning a Super Bowl in 2023. In the second half of the season, the Packers came to life on defense with multiple players emerging from the shadows as breakouts, but on offense the team still sputtered at times. At the receiver position, Rodgers got two new wide receivers in the 2022 NFL Draft: Christian Watson and Romeo Doubs, both of which made significant impacts in the passing game. Yet, neither have been able to replicate the production that Rodgers and Adams put out.
A myriad of factors play into that argument, but those two are coming into their own, along with decent output from Rodgers’ right-hand man Randall Cobb and fledgling spurts of productivity from 7th-round pick Samori Toure.
Youth, inexperience, and lack of team chemistry could’ve been attributed to Green Bay’s slow offensive start– but the NFL is getting younger, and en vogue QB/WR combos have meshed very well over the past couple of years: take Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase or Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson.
The argument might be rooted in a fallacy, neither quarterbacks have had the legacy or insight Rodgers has had, yet both of those performed at a high level from the jump.
Which option Rodgers chooses and whether or not the 2023 season for the Packers ends up devoid of the presumed first-ballot hall of famer, we still don’t know. Rodgers exited his darkness retreat on Wednesday, and since then, we’ve been in the dark.
