As rumors circulate about whether or not Aaron Rodgers will return to the Packers for his 17th NFL season, Green Bay needs a veteran quarterback to round out the depth chart regardless of Rodgers’ status with the team.
With Tim Boyle departing in free agency, Jordan Love is rightfully QB2. While we haven’t seen his progress yet given the lack of preseason games in 2020, going into his sophomore season, it’s only natural Love will climb the depth chart and back up Rodgers. But right now, only Rodgers and Love are on the roster; there’s no third quarterback. That will change before training camp, as the Packers always have a third quarterback at least on the practice squad if not the active roster going into the season.
This year, that third quarterback needs to be someone with plenty of NFL experience. It’s possible Green Bay has found another undrafted free agent they’re high on, just like Boyle in 2018. And that would be great as a developmental prospect on the practice squad. But when it comes to the third quarterback on the roster, it’s time to bring in a vet.
This again has nothing to do with Rodgers’ status with the team or with Love’s perceived lack of development. It’s just smart for the Packers. Think about the pressure a journeyman quarterback could take off Rodgers if he’s there to answer all of Love’s questions and assist in his development so Rodgers doesn’t have to.
Here’s another thing. We don’t know what any of this will do to Rodgers’ and Love’s relationship. It’s hard to picture a seamless transition to training camp where Rodgers and Love fake-wrestle all season like Rodgers did in 2020 with Boyle. And while it’s not Rodgers’ job to help develop his potential successor, a strained relationship could hinder Love’s progress if he’s afraid to come to QB1 with questions.
As the second quarterback on the roster who had experience backing up Rodgers, Boyle was also important to Love’s development.
“At the end of the day, I have to get myself ready to be the best quarterback possible whether I’m ‘2,’ or ‘3’ or (practice) squad. Whatever they have me doing, I just want to help the team,” Boyle said during training camp last August. “The upper management can handle those situations, but I’m just going to handle my reps and be there for Aaron and be there for Jordan and continue to be a good, positive shining light on this team.”
Boyle is entering his fourth NFL season, now with the Detroit Lions, and has never started an NFL game. While he has undeniable experience learning from Rodgers and serving as his backup, the Packers developed him in-house. While another undrafted rookie could come in and show similar growth over the course of a few seasons, going into the 2021 season, Green Bay needs veteran depth on the roster. Veteran doesn’t have to mean “journeyman from 2008” like this next example, but it also should include someone who’s been around the league and started NFL games.
A good example of the veteran mentor dynamic is Drew Stanton backing up Baker Mayfield in Cleveland. It’s slightly different since Mayfield immediately got the keys to the Browns franchise as a rookie and wasn’t attempting to follow a now-three-time MVP, but there are numerous reports about how much Stanton helped Mayfield’s development. Stanton was less of a backup and more of an NFL mentor, a sounding board for Mayfield who had played in the league since 2008 and knew the ins and outs of leading a football team.
In a 2019 article on the Cleveland Browns team website, Anthony Poisal writes, “Stanton's role is to provide as much support and information to Mayfield as possible, but Stanton won't call himself a "mentor." He doesn't know what to call that part of his role. He's just here to help Mayfield out with whatever he needs, and that list is a tad less for Stanton in Year 2 of the Mayfield era.” The article then goes on to explain Stanton’s impact on Mayfield’s development specifically in quarterback meetings.
Josh McCown during his time in Philadelphia is another example of this. He backed up Carson Wentz in 2019 and stayed on the Eagles practice squad in 2020 to assist the quarterback room virtually. McCown had his moments as an NFL starter, but he’s about as journeyman as they come, playing for double-digit NFL franchises. The knowledge he’s accumulated from the game has led to multiple teams considering him for coaching positions when he eventually decides to retire from the game.
In September of 2020, Jason La Canfora of CBS wrote an article titled “NFL execs see Eagles' Josh McCown as a future head coach, and it could come sooner rather than later.”
La Confora writes, “He has left an indelible imprint on all of those teams and impressed a legion of coaches and executives with his ability to absorb and disseminate information and serve as a trusted leader and beloved teammate. Several teams thought he could have served as a play-caller while still on the sidelines. He has been a vital voice in quarterback rooms as far as installations and game-plan suggestions and is already getting coaching experience at the high school level.”
Now, again, McCown was brought in to back up a young quarterback in a starting NFL role, not help develop a potential starter, so there are differences here. But there’s also invaluable experience in giving a veteran quarterback a roster spot, even if in all reality they’ll never see the field. Even then, a “break glass in case of emergency” quarterback option has to instill more confidence in the front office than an undrafted rookie free agent would.
Is there a risk that bringing in a journeyman veteran could rub Rodgers the wrong way? Sure. Rodgers has primarily shared the quarterback room with players the franchise developed in-house, like Boyle or Brett Hundley. Matt Flynn is probably the most recent example of a veteran coming in to backup Rodgers, and even Flynn was a Packers draft pick that came back to the team when Rodgers was injured in 2013. But the Packers have a number of different scenarios they need to plan for, including the possibility that Rodgers isn’t under center in 2021. There’s no way Green Bay could start the season with Love being backed up by an undrafted rookie.
If all of this blows over and Rodgers gets a long-term extension to ride off into the sunset and retire a Green Bay Packer, all of this matters even less and a veteran quarterback on a one-year deal can still assist with Love’s development before Love gets traded to a QB-needy franchise in 2022.
Or maybe Rodgers and Love will never be able to coexist, and this article is pointless because a veteran would come in and be QB2 immediately, whether they’re backing up Rodgers or Love. Even in that scenario, the backup needs to be someone with NFL experience, not a rookie.
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May 05, 2021 at 12:00AM
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Packers Need Veteran Backup Quarterback Regardless - Cheesehead TV
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