Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers divulged his current mindset on his weekly appearance of “The Pat McAfee Show” yesterday… sort of.

There wasn’t much to go off of besides the fact that he won’t be publicly committing to any decision until after the Super Bowl “at the earliest.” Pessimists may imply this is due to the fact that Rodgers wants mystique and drama to surround him for as long as possible. Rodgers insists this is due to the fact that he doesn’t want to make an emotional decision while football is still happening. He added that the news cycle shouldn’t be clouded up by his decision when the Eagles and Chiefs have earned their coverage by making it to the Super Bowl.

Something tells me that the four-time MVP will wait as long as it is possibly reasonable to before committing to a decision, and maybe even a bit longer. The key question being, when is a reasonable time frame? Well to put it simply, if the new league year begins and Rodgers hasn’t decided on his future yet, it probably doesn’t bode well for the Packers.

How Rodgers Could Leverage His Position

Aaron Rodgers does not have a no-trade clause in his current contract, which means if he decides to keep playing but the Packers want to move on, he can simply be traded, right? This might not be the case. The fact is, Aaron Rodgers can leverage his ability to retire at any point. This means he can simply avoid certain trade destinations by exercising the classic Rob Gronkowski move of saying “how can I be traded if I’m retired?” Of course, this is an extreme example, and no one knows if he will hold this kind of malice towards the Packers if they’re ready to move on, but who knows?

In an ideal world, if the Packers want to trade Rodgers, they will collaborate with him in some capacity on finding him a suitable trade destination. In this scenario one would hope that Rodgers will cooperate to a degree that allows the Packers to receive the best value possible for him in a trade. We know that if word got out that he would only possibly play for one certain team, that team would have quite a bit of their own leverage in trade negotiations with Green Bay’s front office.

The above tweet is an example of one possible solution to an attempt by Rodgers to block a possible trade. (Via @KenIngalls on Twitter.)

If Green Bay Wants Rodgers to Stay…

This situation is fortunately a bit less complicated. If Aaron Rodgers wants to return to the Packers, and that feeling is mutual, one would think this is all worked out before March 15, the first day of the new league year. Figuring things out by this deadline would allow the maximum potential for the Packers to ink new contracts and figure out a plan for the NFL Draft in order to put together a roster worthy of “running it back” with Aaron Rodgers.

Obviously Packers fans hope a decision is made by then no matter what so that trade compensation is abundant, or so they at least have an opportunity to figure out the roster they want around Jordan Love in the case of Rodgers retiring.

To answer today’s big question; ideally we would see an Aaron Rodgers decision at least a week or so before March 15. If this does not end up being the case, there’s likely going to be a lot more drama than ever before surrounding Green Bay’s never-ending QB saga.

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Zack is a college student and cheesehead from California. When he’s not in class or writing, you can find him talking about the Packers on Twitter at @Zack_Upchurch.

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