Packer Central

Rodgers Reports to Training Camp

The first practice is Wednesday. Whether or not he will participate will depend on whether the contract has been finalized.

Bill Huber

GREEN BAY, Wis. – It won’t be officially official until Aaron Rodgers signs a revamped contract, but the three-time MVP is officially back with the Green Bay Packers.

At about 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Rodgers was spotted as he and the rest of the team’s veterans reported as scheduled for the start of training camp. First on the agenda: mandatory COVID-19 testing just outside the stadium.

The first practice is Wednesday. Whether or not he will participate will depend on whether the contract has been finalized.

During Monday’s shareholders meeting, as team President/CEO Mark Murphy addressed the fans/owners, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported Rodgers was going to rejoin the Packers. Later in the day, ESPN.com’s Adam Schefter had the details.

Central among them: The team agreed to void the 2023 season, his final year under contract, and would “review” the status of the 2022 season after the upcoming season. So, while Rodgers could potentially return for two more seasons, the Packers will happily take at least one more shot at winning a Super Bowl with a roster that general manager Brian Gutekunst mostly held together despite starting the offseason about $28 million over the salary cap.

Given the Packers' deep cap troubles in 2022 and the obviously uncertain long-term future for Rodgers, this could the Green Bay edition of "The Last Dance."

Rodgers also agreed to restructure his contract to provide cap space. His cap charge for this season is $37.2 million. That includes a $14.7 million base salary which presumably would be cut to the league minimum of just over $1 million, with the difference turned into signing bonus. The Packers are $4.8 million under the cap, according to the latest from the NFLPA. The new money, perhaps $11.3 million, according to OverTheCap.com, would make in-season roster moves easier to handle and potentially be used for contract extensions for key players such as Davante Adams and Jaire Alexander.

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Bill Huber
BILL HUBER

Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: packwriter2002@yahoo.com History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.

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