Murphy: ‘We Want Aaron to Come Back’

Green Bay Packers President Mark Murphy addressed Aaron Rodgers in his monthly "Murphy Takes Five" column.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – During his season-ending news conference two days after the playoff loss to the 49ers, Green Bay Packers coach Matt LaFleur said he wanted Aaron Rodgers to be with the team “until the day he decides to retire.”

LaFleur said he was speaking for the organization. On Saturday, team President Mark Murphy provided the official word of the organization.

“A key factor will be whether Aaron Rodgers comes back for the 2022 season” Murphy wrote in his monthly Murphy Takes Five column. “Matt, Brian (Gutekunst), executive vice president/director of football operations Russ Ball and I are all in agreement that we want Aaron to come back. He is likely to win his fourth league MVP, is the unquestioned leader of our team and is still playing at a high level at 38.”

Rodgers is coming off one of his best seasons of his Hall of Fame-worthy career. He led the NFL in passer rating, touchdown percentage and interception percentage in guiding the team to 13 wins in the 15 games he started and finished. After the Packers were blown out by New Orleans in Week 1, he threw 37 touchdowns vs. two interceptions the rest of the season.

He did not play nearly as well in the divisional-round loss to San Francisco, a 13-10 loss doomed by the team’s miserable offensive performance following the opening drive and three enormous blunders by the special teams.

“The loss to the 49ers in the divisional round of the playoffs was extremely disappointing,” Murphy wrote. “For the second year in a row, we were the No. 1 seed in the NFC and looked to be in a great position to get to the Super Bowl. Unlike last year, we would have a packed Lambeau Field for all home playoff games this year. We were 8-0 at home this year in the regular season and went into the postseason with a lot of confidence. Unfortunately, we picked a bad time to play our worst game of the year (okay, maybe we played worse in our loss to the Saints in Jacksonville to open the season) and wasted a great opportunity.”

After the loss, Rodgers said he’d meet with LaFleur, Gutekunst and the rest of the front office before stepping away to decide his future. Those meetings took place during the days following the San Francisco game.

With a renewed relationship with Gutekunst, Rodgers said it wouldn’t be the same long, drawn-out process as last offseason, when he didn’t decide to return until just before the start of training camp.

“There’s obviously a lot of decisions to be made,” Rodgers said after the game. “There’s a lot of players whose futures are up in the air, so definitely will be interesting to see which way some of those decisions will go. I’ll have the conversations with Brian in the next week or so and get a little bit more clarity and think about my own future and how much longer I want to keep doing this.”

The fate of Rodgers is the most important decision to be made in a critical offseason. All-Pros Davante Adams and De’Vondre Campbell are among the team’s unrestricted free agents. There has been upheaval on the coaching staff with offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett going to Denver as head coach and position coaches Justin Outten and Luke Getsy getting coordinator gigs in Denver and Chicago, respectively.

With a $50 million hole in the salary cap, Murphy called Ball “our most valuable employee” this offseason. The decision with Rodgers, whether as a contract extension or trade, will have a big role in the financial outlook.

“It takes time to get over a loss like that, but, in the NFL, nobody feels sorry for you, and we have a lot of work to do to get ready for next year,” Murphy wrote. “We are significantly over the salary cap for next year, and will have to make many difficult decisions in order to get under the cap.”

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Davante Adams ($16.78 million cap charge; ranking No. 3 among WRs)

Adams is a face-of-the-franchise type of player. In a perfect world, you want your absolute best players to dominate with production, lead with presence and generally do everything on and off the field the right way. That’s Adams.

Adams set franchise records with 123 receptions for 1,553 yards (12.6 average). Eight of his 11 touchdowns came during the final seven games, when the offense really took off. Everyone in the stadium knew where Aaron Rodgers wanted to fire the football and it usually didn’t matter. Rodgers can make any receiver look good, it’s true, but Adams can make any quarterback look good. When you combine a great quarterback and a great receiver with great chemistry, you get what you saw week after week after week.

According to Pro Football Focus, 91 receivers were targeted at least 49 times. Adams ranked 13th in catch rate, third in yards per route (2.92), 18th in drop rate (four drops; 3.1 percent) and 15th in passer rating (114.5). Adams wanted to be more of a force after the catch, so he forced 13 missed tackles compared to only four in 2020 and 15 the previous three seasons combined. He also tied for fifth with 12 receptions on passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield.

Adams is scheduled to be a free agent. If he hits the market, he’ll be the No. 1 available player. Arizona’s De’Andre Hopkins is the highest paid receiver with an average salary of $27.25 million. It’s an outlier contract. Tennessee’s Julio Jones is a distant second with a $22 million average, and only Hopkins, Jones, the Chargers’ Keenan Allen and Dallas’ Amari Cooper average $20 million per season. Moreover, Adams will turn 30 on Christmas Eve. Still, it is the priceless connection between Rodgers and the indomitable Adams that makes the offense go.

Grade: A-plus.

Randall Cobb ($2.69 million cap charge; ranking No. 57 among WRs)

Cobb was brought back at the urging of Aaron Rodgers. He caught 28-of-39 targets (71.8 percent) for 375 yards (13.4 average) and five touchdowns.

In the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t worth the money – and certainly won’t be worth the money next year, when his cap number soars to $9.5 million. But he did deliver when needed and showed he can still play. He had two-touchdown games against Pittsburgh and Arizona, and he was a huge part of the offense in a key win over the Rams before suffering a core-muscle injury that sidelined him for the final six games. He was as fired up as anyone at Lambeau Field when he returned for the playoff game, then inexplicably wasn’t targeted by Rodgers until the final minutes.

Cobb had zero drops, trailed only Adams in yards per pass route (1.49) and had the best passer rating when targeted (144.2). He’ll turn 32 during training camp. The Packers can save almost $6.75 million by moving on and giving Amari Rodgers a shot in the slot.

Grade: C.

Marquez Valdes-Scantling ($2.24 million cap charge; ranking No. 66 among WRs)

As a fifth-round pick in 2018 who hit certain playing-time requirements, Valdes-Scantling got a nice bump in salary (to $2.183 million) as part of the NFL’s proven-performance escalator. After leading the NFL with a 20.9-yard average in 2020 and a big-time training camp this summer, expectations were high entering the season. Limited to 11 games (seven starts) by injuries, he caught 26-of-55 passes (47.3 percent) for 430 yards (16.5 average) and three touchdowns. According to PFF, he had zero drops but also didn’t break any tackles.

With elite size and speed, Valdes-Scantling’s niche is as a deep threat. On passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield, he caught only 6-of-22 (27.3 percent) with one touchdown this season compared to 9-of-30 (30.0 percent) and five touchdowns last season, according to PFF. Aaron Rodgers never quite got dialed in to MVS’s game-breaking speed.

Valdes-Scantling faces an interesting free agency. He is a proven deep threat. He cut his drops from seven to zero. And, until missing six games this season (plus the playoff game), he had never missed a game in his career. But it’s a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately league. Finishing 83rd among receivers in yards isn't the ideal way in which to hit the open market.

Grade: C-minus.

Amari Rodgers ($890,891 cap charge; ranking No. 127 among WRs)

A third-round pick out of Clemson, Rodgers came with some impressive credentials. He was ultra-productive at a national powerhouse, Clemson. His father is Tee Martin, the Tennessee football legend and Ravens receivers coach. He was mentored as a kid by Cobb. His rookie season, though, was not very good.

On offense, he was shoved to the back burner because of the return of Cobb. He caught 4-of-8 passes for 45 yards (11.3 average) with zero touchdowns and one drop. On special teams, he averaged 8.3 yards per punt return and 18.1 yards per kickoff return. On punt returns, simply catching the ball was an adventure at times, though he got better in that phase at the end of the season and wound up with seven returns of 15-plus yards. A make-or-break offseason could await.

Grade: D-minus.

Allen Lazard ($850,000 cap charge; ranking No. 138 among WRs)

Lazard is coming off the best season of his career. He caught 40-of-60 passes (66.7 percent) for 513 yards (12.8 average) and eight touchdowns. The catches, yards and touchdowns all set career highs. He finished the season with a flourish. In the first 11 games, he had only one game of more than three catches. In the final six games, he had five-plus receptions for 70-plus yards three times. His five touchdown catches over the final five games were surpassed league-wide only by Adams.

Lazard is renowned for doing the dirty work. Defenders are so wary of his blocking that they can get blown by in the deep game. He caught 5-of-10 passes thrown 20-plus yards downfield, according to PFF. That was only one less reception than Valdes-Scantling while getting a dozen fewer deep targets. He did have three drops, giving him a drop rate of 7.0 percent that was the worst among the Big 4 receivers but not all that far off the league median of 5.4 percent.

Lazard will be a restricted free agent. He’s been good enough that he could attract interest from other teams. To limit that interest, the Packers could give him the second-round tender, which will be worth almost $4 million. That’s a big chunk of change given the team’s cap problems. The team could do what it did with tight end Robert Tonyan last year, when it gave him that second-round tender, then restructured it with void years to provide cap relief.

Grade: B-plus.

Malik Taylor ($780,000 cap charge; ranking No. 164 among WRs)

Taylor caught two passes for 14 yards at the end of the 38-3 loss to New Orleans in Week 1. He never saw the ball the rest of the season on offense. Heck, he barely saw the field the rest of the season. In 10 games, he played 32 snaps on offense – 15 in Week 1 and never more than five thereafter. About his only noteworthy play was fumbling a kickoff out of bounds at the 5 in Week 14 against Chicago.

Grade: F.

Equanimeous St. Brown ($613,889 cap charge; ranking No. 191 among WRs)

A sixth-round pick in 2018, St. Brown failed to make the roster but wound up playing in 13 games. He caught 9-of-17 passes (52.9 percent) for 98 yards and finished third on the team with seven tackles on special teams. Aaron Rodgers praised St. Brown for his attitude and performance throughout the season but it wasn’t enough to get the ball thrown his direction. He finished last on the team with 0.66 yards per pass route, according to PFF. With that, St. Brown will join a few of his teammates in free agency. On one hand, the Packers might want him back for some stability. On the other hand, he might want a fresh start after not getting many chances following a rookie season of 21 receptions.

Grade: C-minus.

Juwann Winfree ($173,333 cap charge; ranking No. 252 among WRs)

A sixth-round pick by Denver in 2019, Winfree turned heads with a string of excellent practices while the veterans stayed away from the offseason workouts. He caught the first eight passes of his career, which he turned into 58 yards, but fumbled twice. Those were the only fumbles by a Packers receiver on offense the entire season. He also had one of the nine drops charged to Green Bay’s receivers.

Grade: F.

Grading the Quarterbacks

Grading the Running Backs

Grading the Tight Ends

Grading the Receivers

Grading the Offensive Line

Grading the Defensive Line

Grading the Outside Linebackers

Grading the Inside Linebackers

Grading the Cornerbacks

Grading the Safeties