Sports Illustrated Details Pitch Aaron Rodgers Made to Vikings

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The Minnesota Vikings have made it abundantly clear. . .well, abundantly clear to most people, anyway. . .that they intend to turn the keys to the offense over to young J.J. McCarthy in 2025, barring any sort of setbacks from his meniscus injury. There have been rumors swirling around the Vikings and a certain quarterback who used to play for a certain team from a certain state on Minnesota’s eastern border, and now we’ve learned more about what went into some of that process.

Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated has a story out today that talks about the pitch that Aaron Rodgers made to Vikings’ leadership about potentially joining the team for the upcoming season.

When the four-time MVP reached out to the Vikings, with the idea of making a one-year run at a Lombardi and tying it to being a willing mentor for McCarthy, the team felt it had to listen. The proposition, of course, was different than the other two—they’d be jamming the pause button on the idea of playing McCarthy, rather than generating competition and multiple quarterback options.

In the end, faced with all that, the Vikings found themselves emboldened to give McCarthy the runway to seize the job, the staff the opportunity to build the offense for him, and see how that looked at the end of the spring.

So the Vikings passed on Rodgers, pushing their chips in on a 22-year-old.

Mentorship from Aaron Rodgers? I’d sooner solicit investment advice from Jim Cramer.

Sure, it sounds good on the surface, but I’m not buying that any of it would have come to fruition. Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and Kevin O’Connell clearly have a vision of what they want this team to be, and I find it hard to believe the idea that a 41-year-old Rodgers would have suddenly come into Minnesota and bought into the system.

Yes, the Vikings still need some depth at the quarterback position behind McCarthy. From Breer’s story, Rodgers isn’t going anywhere to be “depth.” He’s going to want to start and this team already firmly believes they have their starter in McCarthy. It kind of sounds like the Vikings are done with the whole idea, but the fact that Rodgers hasn’t signed anywhere yet. . .he’s reportedly had an offer from the Pittsburgh Steelers for weeks. . .seems to indicate that he’s holding out some sort of hope.

My hope is that he just waits and waits, and I would prefer it if he did his waiting somewhere far away from Minnesota.