A quick trip to the Internet Anagram Server at www.wordsmith.org reveals thousands of combinations for “Aaron Rodgers.”
As the four-time MVP quarterback’s free agency charade approaches its second month, though, two seem especially fitting:
“Arranges Odor” and “Roared Groans.”
Really, what could be so difficult about Rodgers steeling himself to decide on whether he’ll play in 2025 or retire after 20 NFL seasons? (And yeah, pun assuredly intended on “steeling himself.”) It’s maddening, to be certain, but it’s also the Rodgers way.
Russell Wilson’s recent signing with the New York Giants and words of conviction—imagine those—from Minnesota Vikings general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah about the organization’s belief in J.J. McCarthy make Rodgers’ prospects even clearer.
It’s pick the Pittsburgh Steelers or call it a career.
Rodgers visited the Steelers this month, and more pieces of the leaguewide offseason puzzle have since fallen into place. Yet still nothing from No. 12—or No. 8, if you’ve not yet parted with your New York Jets Rodgers jersey.
As with the first anagram above, it stinks. But of course, there’s precedent.
Remember the spring of 2023? It was no secret Rodgers wanted out of Green Bay, but the Packers needed a trade partner.
It also was no secret the Jets happily fit the bill and carried mutual benefits, and yet Rodgers didn’t agree to the deal until days before the NFL Draft.
Pundits posited then that Rodgers rode things out in the name of prolonged self-promotion. In a time when the league should have been celebrating its next crop of stars and little else, here was an aging one grasping for his share of the limelight.
Another quick search reveals this year’s NFL Draft starts April 24. In Green Bay, of course.
Surely, Rodgers won’t repeat history, right?
There are still plenty in Packerland who appreciate his tenure with the team despite the fallout, but even hypothetical “Adorers Groan” at this Aaron Rodgers nonsense at this point.
Adofo-Mensah was at least diplomatically direct when asked this week about the team’s quarterback situation. McCarthy, a 2024 first-round pick out of Michigan who missed the campaign with a knee injury suffered during preseason, is the Vikings’ QB1.
“That’s the outcome we want, and that’s the outcome we’re headed toward,” Adofo-Mensah said.
He continued that it’s also a front-office duty to “provide insurance in case someone needs to come in for a couple games.” As Adofo-Mensah noted, however, that someone right now is Brett Rypien, someone actually under Minnesota’s employ.
Rodgers isn’t. He can’t be. He’s still unsigned. And undecided.
“I think we got to a place where we just said, everybody was transparent, but right now we feel good about where we’re going, and that’s really how it ended,” Adofo-Mensah said. “It’s ultimately up to him. It’s hard to talk about a player who’s not under contract for our team and who isn’t a member of this team. It’s ultimately up to him what he decides to do with his future, but that’s kind of where we left it.”
Only Rodgers knows the status of his true desires. The past has shown that might not bode well for a swift decision.
Sadly, the anagram machine only seems to agree on Rodgers’ unfinished duty to decide: “Arrears Dog On,” it says.
