When the Green Bay Packers traded Aaron Rodgers (12) in April, 2023, it opened the door for Jordan Love (10) to take over at quarterback.
Getty Images
Brian Gutekunst stood before a throng of media members on April 26, 2023, and dropped an eight word bomb that had many doing a double take.
Gutekunst, the Green Bay Packers general manager, had just traded quarterback Aaron Rodgers to the New York Jets. Gutekunst then summed up the deal like this.
“This is a good day for the Packers,” Gutekunst said.
Good day?
Wow!
Rodgers had won four MVP awards during his 18 seasons in Green Bay. He led the Packers to a win in Super Bowl XLV and four more NFC Championship Games (all losses).
Rodgers will be a first ballot Hall of Famer and is arguably one of the 10 most important individuals in franchise history.
So to call it a “good day” was interesting, to say the least.
Now, 2 ½ years later, it’s safe to say Gutekunst was right.
About everything.
The Packers face the Pittsburgh Steelers — where Rodgers now calls home — on Sunday Night football. And while many will wax nostalgic this week about Rodgers’ time in Green Bay, it’s important to remember the Packers’ future would be bleak if Gutekunst hadn’t traded away the future Hall of Famer.
“There’s always a little bittersweetness there,” Gutekunst said on the day he traded Rodgers. “But at the same time, I think we’re really excited about what this team can do moving forward.”
Once again, Gutekunst was prophetic.
Green Bay, coming off an 8-9 season and in salary cap hell, was going backwards with Rodgers. It was time to find out if 2020 first round quarterback Jordan Love could hack it.
That answer has been a resounding yes.
Love has led the Packers to the playoffs in his first two seasons as the starter, and Green Bay (4-1-1) is currently the No. 2 seed in the NFC. Rodgers, on the other hand, is 10-14 (.416) since leaving town.
Replacing a legend can be harder than Advanced Calculus, but Love has handled the task as well as anyone could have imagined.
“Yeah, it was definitely difficult,” Love said of replacing Rodgers. “I think just coming into an organization who, they’ve had a lot of success at the quarterback position and understanding who you’re taking over for. A-Rod had done a lot of really good things, won a lot of MVPs, won a Super Bowl, so definitely a lot of success he’s had here.
“It’s definitely going to be a tough transition. I think the main thing for me was just trying to block all that out and just understand that for me, this is a great opportunity. Something I’ve been waiting for, for three years being behind him, watching him. So I knew in the back of my head I was ready, and how best can I go out there and try and block all that extra noise out and just play my game and make my own name here.”
Love has done just that.
After a rocky start in 2023, Love and the Packers went 6-2 down the stretch, routed host Dallas in an NFC Wild Card game and lost a nailbiter at San Francisco in the NFC Divisional playoffs. Love went on the heater of all heaters late that year, throwing 23 touchdowns and one interception in a 10-game stretch.
Love battled injuries a year ago, yet still led Green Bay to an 11-6 regular season before it lost to eventual Super Bowl champion Philadelphia in the Wild Card round.
This season, Love is off to a fast start with 10 touchdowns, two interceptions, a 69.3% completion percentage and a 108.1 passer rating.
While Love, who turns 27 on Nov. 2, may never be the player Rodgers or Brett Favre were, he’s a top-10 NFL quarterback. And those aren’t easy to find.
“I don’t care if you’re in Year 10, 11, 12, you’re growing and you’re learning and the game’s evolving and so are you,” Gutekunst said of Love. “He’s right where we need him to be.”
Things haven’t gone nearly as well for the 41-year-old Rodgers since the trade.
Rodgers tore his left Achilles tendon just four plays into the 2023 campaign, missed the rest of that season and the Jets went a disappointing 7-10.
Rodgers returned in 2024 with a star-studded defense, a bevy of offensive playmakers and were dubbed a Super Bowl contender by many prognosticators. But the Jets were the NFL’s most disappointing team, going 5-12 and firing head coach Robert Saleh and general manager Joe Douglas along the way.
Rodgers had respectable numbers with 28 touchdowns and 11 interceptions in 2024. His play was uneven all season, though, and the Jets dumped him after the year.
The 41-year-old Rodgers is off to a solid start in Pittsburgh, with 14 touchdowns, five interceptions and a 105.0 passer rating. He’s averaging just 211.7 passing yards per game, though, and a mediocre 7.4 yards per attempt.
Rodgers would struggle in a race with a three-fingered sloth, meaning he no longer extends plays the way he did in his prime. The arm talent Rodgers displayed for nearly two decades in Green Bay is still real, though, and he’ll undoubtedly want to show that off Sunday.
“Arm talent and IQ is never gonna go nowhere,” cornerback Keisean Nixon said of Rodgers. “I think when he’s retired, I think he can still play better than some of these young guys. That’s just kudos to him for sure. Some people are special and some people have that aura and he’s definitely one of them.”
Cornerback Evan Williams agreed.
“Probably not as mobile as he once was, but … the arm talent still pops off the tape,” Green Bay safety Evan Williams said of Rodgers. “And of course he hasn’t lost his mental edge. That’s what makes him so special as a quarterback.”
As special as Rodgers was as a Packer, it was time to go.
Rodgers and Gutekunst were never truly on the same page after his 2021 holdout. Rodgers skipped the offseason program in 2022, lacked chemistry with a revamped receiving group, and the Packers missed the playoffs for the first time since 2018.
Most importantly, though, Love was ready to play.
In addition to opening the door for Love, trading Rodgers also landed the Packers a bevy of draft picks, which they turned into Lukas Van Ness, Luke Musgrave, Anders Carlson, Edgerrin Cooper, Jacob Monk and Evan Williams.
Cooper and Williams are keepers from that group, the verdict is still out on Van Ness and the others are already gone or could be soon.
Add it all up and Gutekunst was right.
April 26, 2023 was undoubtedly a “good day” for the Packers.
Now, they hope to make Sunday a “great night” by beating their former quarterback.