Rodgers responded with one of his best seasons, leading the league in completion percentage (70.7) and touchdown passes (48) — and another loss in the conference championship game.
That off-season, Rodgers stewed privately and in public appearances on podcasts, and even as he guest-hosted the TV game show “Jeopardy!” The tension reached a head in April 2021, when ESPN reported that Rodgers had asked to be traded.
In July 2021, Rodgers skipped mandatory minicamp but later attended training camp, addressing the rift in his first news conference. “I just expressed my desire to be more involved in conversations directly affecting my job,” he said, explaining his desire for more of a role in the team’s personnel decisions.
But the season was defined as much by Rodgers’s performance as the reasons for his absences. He tested positive for the coronavirus in November, months after he had told reporters that he was “immunized” against the disease. Rodgers that month decried the league’s vaccination mandate and “woke culture” in two podcast interviews. The N.F.L. later fined him $14,650 for violations of the protocols for unvaccinated players, which included not wearing a mask during his weekly news conferences and attending a Halloween party.
Despite the conflicts, Rodgers again excelled in the 2021 season, throwing 37 touchdown passes to just four interceptions, leading the N.F.L. in passer rating and guiding the Packers to a 13-4 record during another M.V.P. campaign. The team lost in the divisional round of the playoffs, but that off-season Rodgers signed a three-year contract extension with a reported $150 million in guaranteed money.
In March 2022, the Packers traded Adams to the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Packers’ offense struggled. Green Bay missed the playoffs, losing its final game of the season to the Detroit Lions, a team Rodgers has beaten 18 times in his career.
As reports of Rodgers’s interest in the Jets hit social media in the weeks leading up to the trade, Jets players openly vied for his services. Ahmad Gardner, the Jets cornerback known as Sauce, wore a Packers fan’s cheesehead hat after the team beat Green Bay last season. He burned the hat alongside other Jets teammates on a video meant to recruit Rodgers.
