Aaron Rodgers has packed his bag, and he’s looking for a little extra leg room. Whether he plays in the Packers preseason opener at New England remains to be seen.
Packers coach Mike McCarthy said “Whoever travels to New England will play,” and Rodgers seemed to fill in the blanks from there.
“I’ll be on the plane,” Rodgers said, via Jason Wilde of ESPNWisconsin.com. “Check an exit row, I’ll be there.”
Rodgers was on hand but didn’t play in the preseason opener in Tennessee last year, but McCarthy couldn’t remember if that was his plan or influence by the weather there. But he admitted there’s a chance Rodgers might not.
Rodgers didn’t play in the first or last preseason games last year, getting just 69 snaps, and was prepared enough to win the league’s MVP trophy.
“I’m not sure how much time I’ll play, but I’ll be there. And I think we’re going to go with the starters for a little while,” Rodgers said. “With having all your returning starters back [on offense], there’s not a whole lot of things we haven’t seen together, so it’s just getting on the same page. Communication’s important.
So it’s just, getting them back used to hearing my [in-game] voice and getting used to the few checks we might make. It’s more of a simpler offense in the preseason, you’re kind of working through some new concepts that don’t involve a ton of adjustments in them, and I would expect this first game to be very vanilla from their defense and to be the same for our offense.”
And that might mean that Rodgers is racking up frequent flier miles, but little else on his trip to Boston.