National Football League

The biggest storyline of Aaron Rodgers' summer? That he's not the story.

Published Aug. 6, 2024 12:52 p.m. ET

You know what type of summer this summer is?

An Olympic summer? Sure. A darn hot summer, depending on where you are? A sweaty "yes." A busy soccer summer? Definitely.

But you know what it isn't — and this is the most surprising thing of all — as the NFL prepares to consume our thoughts again after an interminable time-lapse that seemed like it would never end?

It is not the summer of Aaron Rodgers. Not even a little bit.

Given all that has come before it, this is not just noteworthy, but might necessitate the interruption of regularly scheduled programming. It is an overwhelming change from everything we've known because, hey, for as long as we can accurately remember, every summer has been an Aaron Rodgers summer.

Since we last had a non-Aaron Rodgers summer, COVID came, changed life as we know it, and then eventually became one of those boring generic brand flus that's barely worth a day off work.

Tom Brady joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, won a Super Bowl, retired, unretired, retired all over again, took a break, was the willing subject of a roast, and is now checking in as a No. 1 draft pick rookie broadcaster.

Jordan Love, in many ways the spark for all those Aaron Rodgers summers of angst after the Green Bay Packers traded up to take him in 2020, now shares the title of highest-paid player in the NFL.

Meanwhile, Rodgers is … in camp. Just that. No contractual wrangles. No seeking reassurance that the New York Jets, the Packers, the public, or whoever, truly value, appreciate and worship him.

No overt angling for better receiver help. No arm wrestling over a new deal. No potentially cryptic messages delivered through social posts and T-shirt choices and talk show appearances.

No more wild storylines that can easily be identified by one word or phrase, and phew, there were a lot of those. Rodgers-based narratives are so distinctive they could form the basis for a game of football soap opera Pictionary, typically requiring a single descriptive word or phrase.

How big is this season for Aaron Rodgers' legacy?

Ayahuasca. Love. Immunization. Darkness. Danica. Jeopardy. Shailene. Gutekunst. 4th-and-goal.

There's nothing nearly so juicy or bizarre this time, just typical dullard summer QB chatter, the type of which you see all around the league through the dog days.

Rodgers downplayed a sideline exchange with receiver Garrett Wilson that seemed to get a little heated, dismissing it as productive banter.

"What it appears to be might not always be what the reality actually is," Rodgers told reporters. "We're just passionately talking about the details of a situation that might not have to do with either of us. (He) and I have got a great relationship."

What else? He said he hopes to, (snore), play well for a couple more years. He got slightly irked when a few plays at practice didn't go seamlessly. Some dude stepped on his foot. He jokingly offered to sell his Green Bay house to Love after his former understudy got remunerated to the tune of $220 million over four years.

"He's an impressive dude," Jets head coach Robert Saleh said last week. "And he's a Hall of Famer for a reason. He looks good."

The only snippet of sizzle came over Rodgers' place in NFL Top 100, and it wasn't even of his own making. Chicago Bears corner Jaylon Johnson ridiculed his own exclusion and questioned how Rodgers got in at No. 92 despite playing only four snaps before an Achilles injury torpedoed his 2023 season.

On "First Things First," the more pertinent point for host Nick Wright and guest Eric Mangini was whether Rodgers should have been above Bucs QB Baker Mayfield, who just missed the cut.

"Rodgers shouldn't be ‘on' the list and Baker Mayfield ‘not on' the list," Wright said on FS1. "You can't have Rodgers ahead of Baker in 2024."

"If you put those two options in front of 32 GMs, where for this next season you can have Baker, or you can have Aaron, I would argue that the vast majority, if not 80% of them, would say that they would take Aaron over Baker for this coming season, regardless of what team they were on," Mangini added.

Did Aaron Rodgers deserve a spot in the NFL Top 100?

Either way, the football-centric, drama-free focus of the Rodgers talk would seem to bode particularly well for the Jets' mission of eradicating its status as having the longest playoff drought in the entire league.

Rodgers might thrive on all the frenzy, after all he won MVPs in 2020 and 2021. Still, you'd have to think the best chance for him to thrive at age 40 would be if he and those around him are settled and content.

The awkwardness of the saga in Green Bay was all-consuming and his excellent performances and glowing stats didn't translate into anything more than a bunch of what-might-have-been postseasons.

An intriguing year awaits. The Jets are coming off a 7-10 campaign without him, and boast one of the league's best defensive units, including superstar CB Sauce Gardner.

Perhaps Rodgers realizes time is running out, that he's mastered the craft of being the center of attention, and it's brought him no rings to add to the one he claimed in the 2010 season.

We've had all the Rodgers summers, the fallouts and the breakups and the winks and nudges and guessing games.

Maybe he just got tired of it. And it was darn tiring.

Marcedes Lewis: Playing with Aaron Rodgers & Davante Adams "was like a movie"

Here's a lightning recap, and it won't be that quick, because too much happened for it to feasibly be so.

2020 was the summer of Love, the first shockwaves and relationship cracks in Green Bay. The following year was the summer of everything, an engagement to Shailene Woodley, lobbying for the "Jeopardy!" job, a major fallout with the Green Bay front office, and a big redirection over his vaccine status.

In 2022, it was the summer of money, a three-year, $150 million extension inked, Davante Adams leaving for a truckload of Vegas cash, plus Rodgers' loudly-expressed disappointment in the batch of receivers the Packers drafted for him to throw to.

And then there was the summer of darkness, after Rodgers emerged from a blackened retreat to announce he was leaving for the Jets, before a long negotiation period over what that trade should cost.

That's as concise as we could make it, and we still left a bunch of stuff out.

Phew.

But here we are, a month out from pigskin hostilities starting once more, and Aaron Rodgers in one of the world's biggest media markets. And there's no big talking point, except for, you know, how he's going to play.

After everything that's come before, that's the biggest story of them all.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports. Follow him on Twitter @MRogersFOX.