Our NFL Thursday column hasn’t made an appearance in a few weeks, but it’s not for a lack of things to declare. Remember our last piece was about drafting a project quarterback every year if a GM was being smart, so you don’t end up looking at a washed-up, all-time great QB like Aaron Rodgers. He won his last NFL MVP vote in 2021, but a lot has happened since then, and time has come today for him to pack it in.

He remains unsigned this offseason after two wasted seasons with the New York Jets, which we predicted way back when. His production really dropped in 2023-2024, perhaps due to injury and rust, but it was already apparent that he was losing his magical touch in 2022, before the 2023 injury. Now, facing his age-42 season and definitely labeled as a locker-room problem, too, why would any GM risk signing him now?

In addition to the injury risk and the team-chemistry challenges, he’s also going to demand too much money to be an average QB. There are a dozen cheaper retreads to head into the 2025 season with on your team instead of this guy. Look, we used to love him, but once he started lying about his Covid vaccination status and his play declined, we look at him like we’d look at any business decision in modern sports: Nope.

He is not a team player anymore; the Covid situation made that clear. And with just a low-90s QB rating over his last 35 starts, he is not playing at an MVP level anymore—and he never will again. He hasn’t seen the NFL playoffs since the 2021 season, either, and even though he did manage to play in all 17 games last season, his record as a starter since the onset of the 2022 regular season is just 14-21 despite talented teams.

There are just red flags everywhere. We don’t know where the musical-chairs act is going to end with NFL QBs this month before the annual draft—or where it will be afterward—but no decent GM should be interested in Rodgers as anything but a backup option right now … and an affordable one, at that. We don’t see his ego accepting a low-base salary offer laden with incentives for playing time in a worst-case scenario.

We are wondering why no one in the media will come out and really state this obvious conclusion. Rodgers is done, and if we’re wrong, we will gladly print this column up on paper and eat it on livestream socials.