In May, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said one of his goals is “to be able to be indispensable” to the Packers into his 40s so that they have to keep him around until the end of his career.
After signing a four-year extension to his current deal on Wednesday, Rodgers is now under contract through the 2023 season. He will turn 40 in December of that year, so he’d still be short of reaching a goal of playing into his 40s and he said on a conference call Thursday that he knows the new deal doesn’t guarantee him the kind of ending in Green Bay that eluded Brett Favre.
“I don’t think this guarantees anything other than maybe the first three years of the deal,” Rodgers said. “To get to the end of the contract would be sustained, consistent play. That’s the most important thing. Realizing that Brian is a new G.M., he has decisions he wants to make in the interests of the team and bring in the type of players he wants to bring in. Thankfully I’m one of those players he sees building that immediate future around. ... The financial commitment is such that I feel good about my place on the team for the next few years, but that’s not the type of player I am to just rely on something like that. I want to go out and prove that I’m still an elite player in this league and if I do that I feel good I’ll have the opportunity to finish my career in Green Bay. I definitely am not arrogant in the mindset to say that it would never happen to me. It happened to Favre, it could happen to any of us.”
The first three years of the new deal will take Rodgers through the 2022 season, so the horizon is a long way off at this point. If Rodgers plays like he has to this point in his career, there’s a pretty good chance it will be pushed further away but Packers history provides a pretty good example that nothing is set in stone.