Earlier today, Trey Wingo touched off a firestorm by claiming that Aaron Rodgers to the Jets is a done deal. And we’ve indeed heard the same thing.
But as Monday yields to Tuesday, there’s nothing official regarding Rodgers’s plans for 2023.
We’re still hearing that Rodgers plans to accept a trade to New York. But we know from experience that nothing is done until it’s done.
It could be as simple as Rodgers, who takes almost perverse pride in being able to say that no one who covers the NFL for a living knows what he’s going to do, using the power he has amassed over the Jets (who desperately want him) and the Packers (who desperately want to get rid of him) to insist that no one should say anything until the delicate genius grants them express written permission to do so.
So what will happen? He can’t pretend that the time for making a decision hasn’t come and gone beyond Wednesday, when the new league year begins and his massive contract for 2023 lands officially on the Green Bay books.
Expect something tomorrow or Wednesday. Expect silence until then, under the apparent mandate from Mr. Rodgers that he’s the one who will control all information as to the neighborhood he’ll inhabit in 2023.
The choices seem to be Jets or retire, unless he’s willing to activate for the ultra-awkward option and return to Green Bay. And given that retirement would cost nearly $60 million and relegate him to “special guest star” status for the Tom Brady Hall of Fame enshrinement weekend, don’t be surprised if Rodgers is, by the middle of the week, officially a Jet.