There are plenty of similarities between the Brett Favre/Aaron Rodgers situation and the Rodgers/Jordan Love dynamic. There could be one significant difference, if the Packers take Favre’s advice.
Favre thinks that Love should play from time to time, something Rodgers didn’t do until Favre retired (for the first time).
“I think there’s ways to incorporate it much like Taysom Hill with the Saints,” Favre told TMZ.com. “Use him as a halfback, a halfback pass, but occasionally let him run it just to show that you’ll do that. Something like that.”
Something like that won’t make Rodgers any less salty about the decision to trade up in round one to draft Love. While Rodgers may not care about Love playing halfback or tight end or receiver or whatever, the moment Love throws a pass is the moment Rodgers potentially throws a fit.
There’s a general belief that franchise quarterbacks who can still make all the throws never have the ball taken out of their hands and thrown by someone else. In New Orleans, Hill throws it deep from time to time because, frankly, Drew Brees no longer can. In Green Bay, Rodgers can still do it all.
Indeed, there’s been only one time that any player other than Rodgers has thrown a pass on offense with Rodgers on the field. It happened in Week 13 of the 2011 season, in a game against the Giants. Late in the first quarter, for the first play of a drive following a New York field goal, the Packers dialed up a trick play. Rodgers pitched to running back Ryan Grant, who started to the right before handing the ball to receiver Randall Cobb, who was running to the left. A left-handed thrower, Cobb kept moving in that direction and eventually threw an incomplete pass to receiver Greg Jennings.
Rodgers ended up being the lead blocker for Cobb, and actually blocking Giants defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul, who struck Rodgers in the helmet with his right hand but did not hit him as hard as Pierre-Paul could have under the circumstances.
There have been no other circumstances involving any player other than Rodgers throwing a pass for the Packers with Rodgers on the field. A few weeks later in 2011, however, Cobb ran the ball out of Wildcat formation with Rodgers on the sideline.
After the play, Rodgers ran back onto the field shaking his head. After the game, Rodgers said of the Wildcat formation, “I’m not crazy about it.”
And so he won’t be crazy about Favre’s suggestion that Love should be throwing and running the ball. If the Packers have Love throw the ball and/or send Rodgers off the field or otherwise away from the quarterback spot in the formation, Rodgers rightfully will be miffed.