Aaron Rodgers should go full Brett Favre and sign with the Vikings

Aaron Rodgers and the Jets are destined to break up, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. The organization went all-in on building a team designed to cater to Rodgers, hoping a tailor-made offense and already stout defense could bring them the quick-hit Super Bowl the organization coveted, making them a new version of the Buccaneers or Rams.

Obviously that didn’t work. Now there are reports the Jets might place Rodgers on IR for the remainder of the season, before cutting him prior to the draft. The 40-year-old quarterback still wants to play in 2025, and there’s one landing spot that just makes too much sense because of how Rodgers’ career has mirrored the man he replaced.

Photo by Rob Tringali/SportsChrome/Getty Images

Nothing would be more perfect than Rodgers closing out his career back in the NFC North, for one of the Packers’ fiercest rivals. To take on the mantle of Brett Favre with a premium on pettiness — and the weirdest part of this is that it actually kind of makes sense for everyone involved.

The base-level history is too obvious to ignore: Brett Favre wanted to keep playing after flirting with retirement for years, the Packers wanted to move on with Rodgers before his rookie contract was up. The exact same thing happened with Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love.

Both Favre and Rodgers were traded to the Jets for a song, with the expectation they’d be able to support a stellar defense and win a championship. That never happened.

Favre insisted he could keep playing, went to Minnesota and almost led the Vikings to a Super Bowl, throwing to a stellar receiving duo of Sidney Rice and Percy Harvin — narrowly losing to the Saints in the NFC Championship Game.

Let’s discuss the football side of this and why it might actually make sense for everyone here. Obviously Rodgers will take any job he can get if he wants to keep playing, but there’s going to be a pretty slim market on teams with legitimate chances to win a championship but who are in need of a QB. It essentially comes down to the Vikings, and that’s it.

Some bad team is going to overpay Sam Darnold. That is locked in the tea leaves already. Minnesota is too smart to get into a bidding war with J.J. McCarthy waiting in the wings. That said, they also want to win right now, which is where Rodgers enters the picture.

Keep in mind that there was a promising QB in Minnesota as well when they ultimately elected to sign Favre in 2009. Tarvaris Jackson had an incredible end to the 2008 season, finishing with just over 1,000 passing yards, 9 TDs, and 2 INTs in limited time as a starter. It would have been easy to turn the team over to Jackson entirely, but the belief was that the roster was good enough to really go for it if they had an established quarterback.

Now the 2024 Vikings are showing the exact same thing.

Truthfully, it’s too early to make this into McCarthy’s team — especially in light of the season-ending injuries that have prevented him from being active in learning the offense on the practice field. Turning this team over to him would be tantamount to giving a Ferrari to a teenager as their first car, before watching them grind the gears, and blow out the clutch before ever getting it into fourth.

While Rodgers hasn’t necessarily clicked with the Jets offense this year, he has put up decent numbers. The lack of explosive plays has been a serious issue, but that would be greatly ameliorated with Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison. Throw in running back Aaron Jones, who played with Rodgers in Green Bay — and sprinkle in Kevin O’Connell’s brand of West Coast offense, which is far more suited to Rodgers’ abilities. Man, there might be something here for 2025.

It fits the Vikings’ whole plan of a “competitive rebuild,” a phrase they used a year ago when it was clear the Kirk Cousins era was drawing to a close and they’d be picking a new QB. Let’s say Rodgers has one more year left in the tank, two tops — then McCarthy would still only be 23 or 24 before taking the starting job, with the ability to get fully healthy and learn the system.

As much as Vikings fans might hate the idea, they also hated the idea of Favre before he came in and was their hero for two years. Wilder things have happened in the NFL, and if you love history repeating then it could be the perfect solution for both Minnesota and Rodgers moving forward.