With the Packers' 2021 season firmly in the rearview mirror, the organization’s focus has already turned to the future of Aaron Rodgers. While some think the reigning MVP has already played his final game in Green Bay, teammate Aaron Jones believes that the 38-year-old quarterback will be back with the Packers in 2022.
“I've heard what everybody else has heard, what they're reading,” Jones said Tuesday on NFL Total Access Live. “But I think he'll be there, in my heart. Green Bay, I can't imagine him anywhere else, that's where he's been his whole career. I just can't picture him anywhere else. I think we had a lot of fun this year. I hope to have him back, and I believe in my heart he'll be back.”
Rodgers is fresh off of another MVP-caliber season that saw him throw for 4,115 yards, 37 touchdowns and just four interceptions. However, the Packers exited the playoffs with a divisional-round loss to the 49ers, coming up short of a championship yet again.
The lead-up to the 2021 season in Green Bay was marred by speculation about Rodgers’s future with the franchise. After a months-long battle between the quarterback and the front office, the '20 MVP finally returned to the team before the start of the '21 season.
Considering how instrumental Rodgers was to the Packers' success, team leadership made clear that it wants him back under center in 2022.
“[Head coach] Matt [LaFleur], [general manager] Brian [Gutekunst], executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball and I are all in agreement that we want Aaron to come back,” Packers president Mark Murphy wrote in a column published on the team website on Feb. 5. “He is likely to win his fourth league MVP, is the unquestioned leader of our team and is still playing at a high level at 38.”
Rodgers promised that he won't make his decision this offseason a “long drawn out process,” but he neglected to give a timeline for when he would announce his future plans. He did explain after the Packers playoff exit that “everything is on the table” for him in 2022.
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