One year ago the Green Bay Packers stunned the football world when they traded up to take a quarterback in the first round of the draft. They still employed Aaron Rodgers. And he wasn’t happy about it. He spent the next season playing quarterback better than anyone in the NFL.
Then on Thursday, Rodgers delivered his own draft day bombshell one year later. He wanted to be traded.
The Packers had lit a fuse. Rodgers detonated the bomb.
The news of Rodgers’s trade demand landed on the one day of the off-season when the NFL finds itself at the center of the sports universe. It was the first day of the NFL draft. A day already filled with hot air was pumped full of even more by the reigning MVP trying to force his way out of town. The drama consumed the afternoon and evening and overshadowed the draft with rampant speculation about if the Packers would cave to his demands or where he might go.
Everyone knew this day was coming. The 37-year-old Rodgers decided when that day was.