While football is a team sport, and all 53 players on an NFL roster play a valuable role in their squad’s success, whether or not the Green Bay Packers are able to claim their fifth Lombardi Trophy in 2023 hinges on the shoulders of one person. If quarterback Aaron Rodgers elects to return to the Packers in 2023, the cheeseheads have a shot (however small) at popping champagne next February, just as they have in every healthy season that he’s been the starter. If the enigmatic quarterback (whose Twitter profile picture has been an image of his bare foot for more than a year) decides to jump town, however, Green Bay is likely finished before the season ever starts.
As it stands on February 20, the Packers are listed at or around +2500 to win it all at a variety of sportsbooks, good for the top third of the league and one of the best teams in the NFC. Even though Green Bay missed the playoffs in 2022, slumping to third place in the NFC North division, that’s to be expected. If there’s even a shadow of a chance that Rodgers suits up in green and gold this upcoming season, sportsbooks aren’t going to want to preemptively put the final nail in the Packers’ coffin, but you can bet on Fanduel with their Promo Code knowing this. Despite all of his bizarre off-the-field headlines, Rodgers is one of the most gifted quarterbacks of all time—if not the most—and his combination of mental acuity (at least in a football sense) and breathtaking arm strength, accuracy, and mobility makes him a game breaker.
If Rodgers decides to retire or force his way out of Wisconsin, however, those odds will plummet faster than the stock market did in the fall of 1929.
When the outside world last heard from Rodgers during his weekly appearance on former Colts punter Pat McAfee’s podcast, he was planning to embark on a ‘darkness retreat’ in order to decide what to do with the remainder of his career. Per the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “a darkness retreat is a total isolation experience, often in secluded locations, where you are in complete darkness for a select number of days. Rodgers will spend four days in a one-room house at an unannounced location.”
It’s a practice long used for meditation in religions like Buddhism and Taoism, more recently co-opted by New Age westerners.
If Rodgers’ decides to continue his career in a place other than Green Bay after this, his strange behavior (combined with his recent injury history and his advanced age) could tank their ability to trade him for a good return. The New York Jets have apparently soured on the idea of trading for Rodgers because his unpredictable actions could cause them to miss out on other options—like quarterback Derek Carr— if he suddenly decides to change course.
Former Packers writer Bob McGinn told Fox News on February 20 that Green Bay’s management is disgusted with Rodgers’ behavior, so the Packers’ Super Bowl odds could swing wildly in the coming days if the situation comes to a head.
A Look at the Field: the Rest of the NFC North
When forecasting what a team will do in the upcoming season, it’s always a good idea to look at their competition. Unfortunately for prospective Packer’s predictors, the NFC North is in a state of flux. The Minnesota Vikings were one of the best regular season teams in the standings in 2022, winning the division with a 13-4 record, but they still managed to have a negative point differential, making them a prime pick to regress. The Vikings will be accused of being frauds for as long as Kirk Cousins is their quarterback.
The Detroit Lions are going to be a preseason sweetheart as a dark horse pick, as the team improved dramatically in their second season under the leadership of head coach Dan Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes. Detroit barely missed out on a playoff berth last season, falling victim to questionable calls in a Week 18 game between the Seahawks and Rams that froze the Lions out of the playoffs while opening the door for Seattle.
The Chicago Bears will have the most cap space in the league when the 2023 NFL season begins in earnest with the free agent signing period, nearly double that of the next closest team, and they’ve got a talented young quarterback—albeit one in an awful situation—in Justin Fields. Whether or not Detroit and Chicago manage to actually pull it together for once and shake off decades of futility is anyone’s guess.