Aaron Rodgers throws shade at Matt LaFleur over blame avoidance for drafting Jordan Love - “They all signed off on it"

Jordan Love's selection irked Aaron Rodgers' fans and sent pundits scrambling to brace for the fallout. Typically, older quarterbacks playing well refuse to acknowledge their age and feel slapped in the face when their organization drafts their successor.

According to Matt Schneidman of The Athletic, the Packers knew this might be the case. As such, they lied to him about who was involved, only throwing the general manager under the bus. However, No. 12 had people tell him otherwise. Here's how he put it:

“I had friends who said, ‘Hey, Matt looked super excited when they made the draft pick. I said, ‘I don’t care, honestly.’ Like, they made the pick. They all signed off on it.”

Here's the full article.

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Now that there's reason to believe that the quarterback was truly unhappy with the move made by his team, it changes the perspective of how he performed in the following years. Put simply, one could argue that the move lit a fire under him or otherwise put a chip on his shoulder.

In the first season following the 2020 NFL draft, the quarterback had arguably the best season of his career. He threw for 48 touchdowns and just five interceptions, beating his next best two seasons of 45 touchdowns (2011) and 40 touchdowns (2016). One could argue that this isn't a coincidence.

In 2021, Rodgers regressed a touch, throwing for 37 touchdowns and four interceptions. Of course, it was still a better season statistically than every year going back to 2016, when he threw for the aforementioned 40 touchdowns.

Then, in 2022, he took a further step back, throwing for 26 touchdowns and 12 interceptions and back in line with what he had been doing in 2017, 2018 and 2019.

In those years leading up to Love's addition, he averaged about 22 touchdowns and four interceptions. In the years following the NFL Draft, he also reached the NFC Championship and earned two MVPs.