As the Packers, Jets, and Aaron Rodgers are locked in a three-way stare down straight out of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, the Packers feel no compulsion to blink.
Per a league source, the Packers are willing to wait until the draft to trade Rodgers, if that’s what it takes to get what they want.
With Rodgers habitually absent from the early phases of the offseason program, it’s not as if he’ll be in the building between now and April 27. And with a $58.3 million option bonus that has a lengthy exercise period (the Packers can pick it up at any point from tomorrow until Week One), Rodgers has a very manageable cap number into September.
Basically, they get the benefit of the multi-year proration without having to pay the $58.3 million.
So the Packers can just wait. It’s indeed a game of chicken, but from Green Bay’s perspective the car isn’t close to the cliff. The Jets, on the other hand, may feel compelled to get something done — especially as they begin signing Rodgers’s friends and former teammates.