Almost exactly 16 years ago — starting in late November of 2008 — Brett Favre’s one-year shotgun marriage to the New York Jets went into the tank. At the time, the Jets were 8-3, squarely in the AFC playoff picture, and coming off a 34-13 win over the Tennessee Titans. But there was also a problem.
Favre’s throwing shoulder was in pain.
Though the franchise wouldn’t know it definitively until an MRI in late December, Favre had taken a hit against the Titans and tore the biceps tendon in his throwing shoulder. It was an injury that would take a season of Favre-mania in New York and turn it inside out — scuttled by a 1-4 finish which saw the Jets quarterback (and presumptive starter the next season) throw two touchdowns against nine interceptions. The Jets missed the postseason, with Favre looking and sounding like he was physically and mentally cooked. Not surprisingly, he told the Jets he was retiring just a few weeks after the conclusion of the season.
And that was that.
Of course, it wasn’t.
Favre’s legendary flip-flopping with his retirement status had one more turn left, and following his release by the Jets in late April of that year, he was drawn back into the NFL fold by the Minnesota Vikings in mid-August. At the time, it was natural to ask what Favre could have left. His season with the Jets, despite earning a Pro Bowl nod, was a roller coaster in the middle of a circus. It ended badly and injured. Then the Vikings came calling.
One year later, Favre put together one of the best seasons of his career, finishing 2009 with 33 touchdowns and seven interceptions while leading the Vikings to the NFC title game, where they narrowly lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints.
This is a relevant chapter of NFL history right now. Because we’re staring at a fading Aaron Rodgers with the Jets — clearly still not himself after last year’s Achilles repair — and wondering what’s left in the tank for a star who, like Favre before him, is looking physically and mentally cooked in a Jets uniform.
Given the clean sweep firings of the head coach and general manager who courted Rodgers so feverishly to the Jets — and the team owner who reportedly verbalized the idea of benching him early in the season — it’s fair to expect that the end is near for the soon-to-be 41-year-old veteran. Or at the very least, the end with the Jets is near.
But with Rodgers already stating that he wants to play in 2025 — and sources close to him telling Yahoo Sports that he doesn’t want his legacy to be this Jets implosion — it’s worth taking a gander at potential landing spots for Rodgers this offseason. As much as we’re staring at him and certain that he doesn’t have much left to offer, we can’t account for every NFL general manager or head coach who might think otherwise.
With that in mind, here’s what the landscape looks like, with a rationale for and against Rodgers’ next potential landing spot.
Starting with the …
San Francisco 49ers
Why it could happen: Head coach Kyle Shanahan made a call to see if Rodgers was available via trade prior to the 2021 NFL Draft. Shanahan has spoken glowingly about Rodgers on many occasions and has the confidence (arrogance?) to believe he could get one last squeeze out of the future Hall of Famer. Plus, this 49ers team, if fully healthy in 2025, would represent the kind of talented landing spot that turned Favre around for one exquisite post-Jets season. Rodgers also wants to be on a team that can win now. He’s not sticking around to get creamed on a bad team.
Why it won’t happen: Brock Purdy’s extension is still the primary plan for the 49ers right now. And while he’s had some ups and downs this season, he still represents a decade or more of quarterback stability in San Francisco. Unless Purdy falls apart, there’s no reason to risk that on an aging and limited Rodgers — even if Rodgers agreed to play for next to nothing to help the 49ers with their salary cap.
Los Angeles Rams
Why it could happen: Like Shanahan and the 49ers, Sean McVay and the Rams had their own interest in Rodgers in 2021, prior to dealing for Matthew Stafford. There’s some question about whether or not Stafford will be in the fold next season, and the Rams don’t have a clearly logical long-term option at the position. The overall roster isn’t the same quality as San Francisco, but Rodgers has a personal affinity for Los Angeles and there is enough offensive talent to at least have a nice one-season bridge opportunity for both quarterback and team.
Why it won’t happen: The Rams have salary-cap issues, so Rodgers would have to come in for nothing, and the team has shown little interest in rebuilding with anything but younger players. Adding Rodgers would merely be a one-season patch to try and win the Super Bowl in the 2025 season, and the Rams don’t look like they’re equipped for that with or without him. So what would be the point?
Minnesota Vikings
Why it could happen: Because the universe is weird and the Vikings did resurrect Favre so why bet against the planets aligning and history repeating itself? Also, starter Sam Darnold is leaving in free agency for a starter contract elsewhere, and rookie J.J. McCarthy is coming off two offseason knee surgeries and is still learning the playbook and position. Meanwhile, the Vikings’ roster would give Rodgers exactly the kind of weapons to recapture a season of greatness, while also sticking it in the eye of the Packers just for fun. So, basically, what Favre did.
Why it won’t happen: There’s little logic in letting go of Darnold in free agency so that you can get moving with the McCarthy plan, then replacing that plan with a Rodgers interruption. The Vikings would be asking for problems and drama.
Seattle Seahawks
Why it could happen: Geno Smith hits a wall this season and the Seahawks fizzle down the stretch, and at some point the team sees that Sam Howell isn’t a viable starter. And some weird form of desperation.
Why it won’t happen: Rodgers isn’t a better option than holding onto Smith for at least one more season and continuing to work with Howell.
Cleveland Browns
Why it could happen: Madness.
Why it won’t happen: Sanity. And the salary cap. And Deshaun Watson hangover. And sanity (yes, I said it twice).
Tennessee Titans
Why it could happen: Desperation from a front office and coaching staff that feels like it basically has 2025 to put a winning season together, and the hope that maybe Will Levis could get something positive by sitting behind Rodgers for a season and rebooting.
Why it won’t happen: Levis is at least playing well enough in losses and showing signs of life, earning one more year of patience and development. Also, Rodgers doesn’t want to be a part of a in-progress build.
Indianapolis Colts
Why it could happen: Same thing I said about the Titans, but plug in Anthony Richardson for Levis.
Why it won’t happen: Same thing I said about the Titans, but plug in Anthony Richardson for Levis.
Las Vegas Raiders
Why it could happen: Mark Davis is a bad team owner who likes shiny things and will be desperate if the Raiders aren’t positioned to draft a quarterback. And maybe minority owner Tom Brady thinks Rodgers has something left.
Why it won’t happen: This is a rebuild and Rodgers isn’t putting his last gasp into a rebuild. Also, Davante Adams has told Rodgers everything he needs to know about the Raiders and their own bad ownership situation with Davis.
Miami Dolphins
Why it could happen: Tua Tagovailoa suffers another concussion that changes the course of his career and he has to sit out the 2025 season — but is also eligible to return in 2026, health permitting. The Dolphins need a one-season fix and have the talent to be attractive to Rodgers.
Why it won’t happen: Tagovailoa won’t get another concussion this season and there is no need for a starting quarterback next year.
Carolina Panthers
Why it could happen: Bryce Young falls apart down the stretch and the Panthers find themselves in a situation where they can’t lure or draft another starter.
Why it won’t happen: Rodgers is in the class of players who couldn’t be lured to Carolina. It’s a rebuild of rebuilds.
New York Giants
Why it could happen: The Giants’ coaching staff and front office has to win in 2025 or get swept out, and Rodgers is a better option than the other retreads or rookies available. Pure desperation.
Why it won’t happen: The Giants’ ownership, coaching staff and front office has had a front-row seat for Rodgers’ stint with the Jets. They know what this looks like. Rodgers won’t be interested in the rebuild. And the Giants will be positioned to draft a quarterback.
New Orleans Saints
Why it could happen: See the Cleveland Browns entry.
Why it won’t happen: See the Cleveland Browns entry and replace Watson’s name with Derek Carr.
Retirement
Why it could happen: It’s probably the best and most realistic option left on the table.
Why it won’t happen: Rodgers can’t go out like this, and will play almost anywhere to make sure the Jets debacle isn’t the last image he leaves in the NFL.
For now, that’s the horizon Rodgers is heading into. Now entering Week 12 of the QB Room …
• Most of this week’s odds and ends is going to be eaten up by three quarterback contract situations to watch in the second half of the season. So buckle up. These three cases are drawing more curiosity across the league with each passing week, from a financial and talent perspectives. And all of them are seemingly getting more complicated as we head into the home stretch of the regular season. In no particular order, it’s time to talk about …
Brock Purdy’s extension with the San Francisco 49ers:
As we mentioned in the Rodgers multiverse lead, there remains a possibility that this situation takes a left turn. Part of it is rooted in how head coach Kyle Shanahan’s opinion of Jimmy Garoppolo began to erode following the Super Bowl LIV loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in 2020. The following season, you began to hear from some of Shanahan’s confidants that he had some frustrations with Garoppolo’s decision making and ability to handle moments on the big stage. Then came the drumbeat that Shanahan still pined for Kirk Cousins, which seemed shocking at the time.
Looking back, the takeaway from the situation were that Shanahan could definitely run hot and cold with starting quarterbacks. Even guys who were proven and had some success. Garoppolo’s injuries ultimately undercut him the next few seasons with the 49ers, but there’s merit to the belief that the experience left a lasting impression on how long Shanahan sticks with guys once he has even a sliver of reservation.
Applying that to the Purdy situation, there’s no question there have been peaks and valleys this season in his play. Not dramatic swings, mind you, but enough to make the remainder of the season important when it comes to the urgency of his contract extension.
The 49ers close out their final seven games with considerable competition, including two concrete Super Bowl contenders (the Buffalo Bills and Detroit Lions), a Green Bay Packers team that is in the thick of playoff seeding and two NFC West teams that are clawing to win the division (the Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals). And of the two “easy” teams left on the schedule, there are the Miami Dolphins, who can challenge the 49ers defensively and are getting better with Tua Tagovailoa’s return, and the Chicago Bears, who made a change at offensive coordinator that created encouraging signs.
That’s not a cakewalk for the 5-5 Niners down the stretch. How Purdy plays in that expanse will matter, particularly as it pertains to this latest concern about his throwing shoulder — which reportedly interfered with his practice on Thursday — and whether he can elevate the healthy parts of San Francisco’s roster down the stretch.
The plan is still to extend Purdy this offseason. But if this is an uneven ride or Purdy has health issues through the rest of the season, it’s more likely the team presses pause on extension talks and evaluates how it moves forward. If that happens, I think the 49ers will play out the final year of Purdy’s deal in 2025, knowing they can either extend him after that season or apply the franchise tag
The bottom line: There might be one more prove-it year in play for Purdy if he can’t catch a heater from this point on. And there’s this whisper … former 49ers backup Sam Darnold looks pretty good running the Shanahan offense in Minnesota and will be a free agent this offseason.
Russell Wilson’s potential new deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers:
It’s certainly not time to get over our skis when it comes to Wilson’s contractual future, but his 4-1 start and fit within the Steelers’ scheme and ideology has been good enough to start laying track for a longer marriage. When I spent time with the Steelers in the summer, I was flat-out told by members of the team’s braintrust that the 2025 quarterback was absolutely on the 2024 roster. The only question was whether it would be Wilson or Justin Fields.
Right now, Wilson is making the best case to be the choice. That said, he turns 36 next week and the offense hasn’t been a juggernaut, which was evident in Sunday’s touchdown-less win against the Ravens and Thursday night’s 24-19 defeat to the 3-8 Browns. So there needs to be some thought into how the team would be constructed around Wilson with an extension.
Even under the best circumstances, Wilson’s extension would likely be a four-year pact with a window of guaranteed money in 2025 and 2026, making it a short-term gamble — with the potential to renegotiate and create some guaranteed money in 2027 if Wilson can play at a high level in 2025 and the Steelers make some playoff strides.
A question that is buzzing across the league right now is what Wilson’s salary would look like, given his age and this being his late-stage reboot in his career. A follow-up to that question is whether Wilson would take a team-friendly deal that would allow Pittsburgh to inject more capital to create a three-year Super Bowl window from 2025 to 2027. I asked around with a few general managers who have done their fair share of mid-to-high level quarterback deals, and the sense that I got was that Pittsburgh could seek the kind of contract Aaron Rodgers did with the New York Jets, with a slight adjustment to align with the salary cap expanding rapidly.
The result: something in the neighborhood of four years for $160 million, with $80 million guaranteed at signing — and a trap door after the 2026 season that would allow the Steelers to move on without much cap pain if Wilson’s play goes off a cliff.
Mind you, this is all based on Wilson finishing out 2024 with a strong run. That remains to be seen. If it happens, expect the Steelers to move quickly following the season to lace something up with Wilson, but also reserve the right to franchise tag him in the $42 million range if something can’t be put together before free agency.
Sam Darnold’s impending free agency:
There are some interesting split opinions on what is going to happen with Darnold. There are quite a few executives who think Darnold has worked himself squarely into the track that Baker Mayfield took in 2023, when Mayfield signed a one-year prove-it deal with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2023 (earning $6.85 million) while parlaying himself into a healthy contract extension. That deal ended up being a three-year, $100 million contract with $40 million guaranteed at signing from the Buccaneers. It looks like Tampa Bay landed a solid bargain. But Mayfield is also likely to press for extension talks following the 2026 season and a new deal that could pay him considerably more, given his current level of success. Adjusted for Darnold, a Mayfield-type of contract could be in the neighborhood of three years for $120 million, with $50-60 million guaranteed at signing.
Now comes the split opinion. A couple executives are still looking at Darnold as a player who is more likely to regress when he isn’t throwing to Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, or being coached up by Kevin O’Connell. They feel like he’s most valuable to the Vikings team that he’s currently starting for, and that his best career route would be finding a path to sticking in Minnesota and building on what he’s accomplished this season. Of course, that’s not the Vikings’ plan. With the money the team has already doled out to Jefferson, the design is to use the flexibility offered by having a rookie salary in the starting quarterback spot — which is why the Vikings used the 10th overall draft pick on J.J. McCarthy. Blowing up that plan and signing Darnold to even a mid-level quarterback extension would create a need for adjustments.
I’ll close this out with a comparison from an NFC executive: “[Darnold] is having his Case Keenum moment, like Keenum putting it together for a season with the Vikings [in 2017]. Then he went to Denver on a free-agent contract and wasn’t throwing to [Adam] Thielen in his prime — which was actually really good — and Stefon Diggs, and getting protected by a Vikings defense that was really good that year. He went somewhere else and we saw how much of his progress was about the talent and team around him. To me, that’s what Darnold is right now. If he can stick in Minnesota, that’s his best shot. Anywhere else, he’s not going to be playing at this level.”
It’s food for thought. For all three of these players and the deals that they are chasing.
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• I’m not going to waste more time on the Shedeur Sanders-to-Dallas fever dream that the talk shows are having, but I have to relay a point that an AFC general manager made when we were chatting earlier this week: Even if Dallas was stupid enough to go the rookie quarterback route, then got over hurdle No. 1 by drafting Sanders, then cleared hurdle No. 2 by getting Dak Prescott to waive his no-trade clause …they’d still trip horrendously on hurdle No. 3, which is the reality that no team in the NFL wants to take on Prescott’s new contract — especially after he just suffered a second lower body injury that required surgery and could render him even less mobile than he already is following the first major lower body injury of his career requiring surgery in 2020.
Prescott is not seen as a great health or salary risk for anyone right now. That means if Dallas were to draft Sanders, the Cowboys would likely have to cut Prescott and take on a $90 million dead cap hit that renders the flexibility of Sanders’ rookie salary completely nullified. Could Dallas go this route? Absolutely. Would it be wildly foolish and risk bottoming out the entire organization in the next couple of seasons? Yes. Without a doubt. And everyone in the league knows it.
• One of the interesting things that I’ve seen with the success of the rookie quarterbacks this season — and it’s something that was accentuated with Bears QB Caleb Williams’ first game under new offensive coordinator Thomas Brown — is that teams are loosening up when it comes to athletic QBs being allowed to access their scrambling ability in spite of the inherent risks of it. We’ve seen it with Jayden Daniels in Washington, where part of the offense was contracted to move the pocket, but also opened further with a willingness to let Daniels cook with his running ability. The same has gone for Bo Nix in Denver and Drake Maye in New England. Talking with a source from the Broncos earlier this week about Nix, he made a great point about why rookie QBs are being allowed to run more often this season.
“It’s two things,” he said. “There are more players in this rookie class who can do it really well, which is obviously the most important thing, but it also gives them a lot of confidence. Then that confidence gets injected into other things they’re doing. It’s similar to scripting some easy [pass completions] on the first drive. You’re getting the juices flowing. [Running] isn’t something you want to do forever, but if you can do it smartly and it helps a young guy adjust, let them engage that part of their talent.”
Given that vantage, maybe it was no surprise that when Brown took over for the fired Shane Waldron, one of the aspects that got accentuated for Williams was that he could go to his scrambling ability more readily if he wasn’t seeing a clear decision quickly in his progressions. Not only was Williams getting the ball out faster, but when you watch film, you could see him taking the running option very deliberately when a throw wasn’t available, leading to his season high of 70 rushing yards on nine carries. I don’t think that was an emphasis for Williams under Waldron, and I expect we’ll see Williams making more plays taking the running lanes available to him the rest of the season.
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