At 33-years old, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is 13 seasons into his pro career, all of which he’s spent with the same team. As he told reporters on Thursday, he plans on sticking around for quite some time to come.
On the same day that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady turned 40, Rodgers told reporters that he plans to make it to the same milestone and in the same way the lifer Patriot did it.
“I do think it’s realistic,” the 33-year-old Rodgers said. “I hope it’s in this locker room, though. That would mean it’s been at a high level. Like I said, hopefully Dec. 2 of 2024, help me out, 2023. Thank you.”
“It’s being a sports fan and watching some of my favorite all-time players either not finish in the place they started or the place where you fell in love watching them play — or they did,” Rodgers said. “And seeing how different the memory is of those players as a fan, and seeing some of my favorite players growing finishing up now or have finished up in the last two or three years — the Derek Jeters, the Kobe Bryants, the Tim Duncans — doing it their entire career in one place, that makes things pretty special.
“So again, I’m a realist as well. I have to play well, the team has to want to bring me back, but I’ve said I’d like to finish things here where we started.”
Rodgers is currently signed through 2019 with the Packers, so he’d have to sign at least one more contract if he wants to make it that far. The tricky part of that is how Rodgers would be paid towards the tail end of his career when his name and reputation likely affords him a deal at the top of the NFL quarterback heap.
If nothing else, if Rodgers sticks around that long, it gives Skip Bayless plenty of time to flip-flop on the QB a few more times.
[ESPN]
