Fantasy Impact: Aaron Rodgers Staying With Packers

Rodgers reportedly signing the most lucrative deal in NFL history is good news for fantasy managers.

In a deal that has major real-world and fantasy football implications, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers have agreed to a four-year, $200 million deal that will make him the highest-paid player in NFL history.

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Rodgers, the NFL’s reigning MVP, has been bananas good in the stat sheets for most of his playing career. But age certainly hasn’t slowed him down. In fact, he’s thrown for a combined 8,414 yards and 85 touchdowns with just nine interceptions in his last 32 games. In those two seasons, he’s averaged more than 22 fantasy points per game.

Heading into his age-38 season (he turns 39 in December), Rodgers will remain one of the top six quarterbacks in fantasy football. His presence in Green Bay is also expected to lead to the return of pending free agent Davante Adams, who will remain one of the two best wideouts in fantasy football. The Packers do have other questions in the rest of the passing game, as Marquez Valdes-Scantling, Allen Lazard (RFA) and Robert Tonyan are all slated to become free agents. The Packers also have a miserable cap situation, as they’re in the bottom three in the NFL in terms of salaries, per Spotrac.

Still, Rodgers is the type of quarterback who can make average players good and good players great in the passing game, and teams always figure a way to massage their salary cap situation. Heck, Rodgers’s deal will pay him an average of $50 million a year!

The Packers should also look to trade former first-round pick Jordan Love, who now has no chance to be the starter in Green Bay in the near future. What such a trade would bring in return is a question mark, but there are plenty of quarterback-needy teams.

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Michael Fabiano is an award-winning fantasy football analyst on Sports Illustrated and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association (FSWA) Hall of Fame. Click here to read all his articles here on SI Fantasy. You can follow Michael on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for your late breaking fantasy news and the best analysis in the business!