Aaron Rodgers Signs New Contract
Packers Make Some Interesting Decisions at Backup QB
Perhaps due to a necessity born of salary caps and player egos, NFL teams tend to willingly ignore the possibility that their star players could miss games due to injury. The exception to this, generally and predictably, occurs when a team is forced to face this reality by those exact circumstances. That’s what makes the quarterback decisions made by the Green Bay Packers prior to the last preseason game so interesting.
It is no secret or surprise that the notion that the Packers failed to make the playoffs for the first time in the past ten seasons last year due to the Week 6 injury to Aaron Rodgers is a popular one in Green Bay. That at least partially explains, then, why the Packers agreed yesterday to pay the aging Rodgers $135 million ($100 million guaranteed) over the next four years. It does not explain, however, why the Packers traded the assumed 2nd string quarterback Brett Hundley that same day.
Throughout training camp, there was a publicly transparent competition between Hundley and 2nd-year trade acquisition Deshone Kizer to fill the spot immediately behind Rodgers on the depth chart. Despite objections and preferences like my own, Hundley seemed to have earned the slight advantage. This competition seemed particularly high-stakes since…
