I don’t particularly enjoy Stephen A Smith. Much like freight trains and country music concerts he’s the sort of loud that makes me cringe. But every great once in a while, despite his shouting, the man makes a point.
As the onslaught of Aaron Rodgers opinions rage on, it appears ESPN’s top personality has finally hit a breaking point. On First Take Smith appeared even more exasperated by discussing Rodgers’ future than Rodgers often does.
By now we’ve all heard Rodger’s remarks on Aubrey Marcus’s podcast. On First Take they played the sound bite that included the words “if you don’t like it and you think it’s drama and you think I’m being a diva or whatever then just tune it out.” Smith couldn’t handle it.
“We can’t tune out one of the best quarterbacks to ever play the game but my god I wish we could. I’m so sick and tired of talking about everything about Aaron Rodgers except winning. I’m on the record outside of Patrick Mahomes and that’s only because of recently, the greatest talent from the quarterback position I’ve ever seen in my life and a guy that I like personally but I’m so sick and tired and I would be embarrassed if people were talking about this much and I hadn’t won.”
Click here to see full remarks.
We’ve spent more time the past few years discussing Rodgers relationship with the front office and vice versa than we have the team’s success on the field. LeBron James has been a divisive topic in basketball much the way Rodgers has been in football, but James is carrying around four trophies.
The only solution that would be truly disappointing as a Packers fan would be Rodgers retiring. Although it would mean he spent his entire career with the organization, it would also mean as an organization Green Bay missed an opportunity to maximize value.
If Rodgers wants to return, although some may not think it’s the right choice, you can trade Jordan Love for draft picks, load up this roster, and take one more two-year shot with Rodgers. If Rodgers wants to leave he should command a decent price and you can start out the Love era with a bunch of talent. Either way both of these paths are focused on winning. Between Rodgers desire to have his friends around and not show up for off-season programs and Brian Gutekunst’s insistence on not drafting and playing the free-agent market in win now mode, this team blew a huge opportunity the last few years. They cannot continue down that path.
The conversation going forward, regardless of what Rodgers has meant to this organization or what Love potentially means, needs to be about winning plain and simple. And oh by the way, that means as soon as this team figures out the Rodgers situation the conversation needs to quickly shift to Matt LaFleur, his hiring process, and the fact that he kept Joe Barry around.
