Aaron Rodgers' contract limits Packers' options

It would seem as if the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rodgers are stuck together for the time being. 

With the team currently at 3-6 and facing a lack of talent as well as a lack of budget, one or both parties could potentially want out of the current arrangement, despite the fact that we know he wants to retire a Packer.

Sure, he's a four-time MVP and has won the award in each of the last two seasons, but Rodgers has been playing terribly this season (seven interceptions compared to 14 touchdowns) and there is reason to believe that father time could be catching up to the future Hall of Famer.

Not everyone can play until 45 years old like Tom Brady, after all. And unfortunately for Packers fans, the lack of rings on Rodgers' fingers is a clear reminder that he -- for all his elite talent -- is not Brady.

So can't the Packers ask him to retire, or simply just cut or trade him this offseason? 

They did draft Jordan Love in the first round in 2020. Why not let Rodgers ride off onto greener pastures (even retirement) and see what the young gun can do?

Unfortunately, as ESPN reporter Rob Demovsky pointed out, the massive contract extension Rodgers signed this past offseason really limits what the Packers can do if they did indeed want to start the Jordan Love era in earnest. 

Rodgers is due a $58.3 million bonus if he's on the roster next season. He's certainly made a ton of money throughout his career and he obviously has great endorsements (think: State Farm), but if he feels he can still play that bonus provides him 58.3 million reasons to not leave Green Bay in 2023. Even if he feels he can't play, that kind of money is hard for anybody to walk away from.

Green Bay could cut him, but he'd count $99 million towards the Packers' 2023 salary cap in dead money. That would be an unheard of cap disaster and would likely lead to general manager Brian Gutekunst being fired.

So how about a trade? 

Again, that contract is a problem. If the Packers want to trade Rodgers, they'd have to find a team that's willing to take on his massive salary. The contact is fixing to be albatross around your neck in 2023 and beyond, so why would any other team want to pick that bill up?

A trade is probably the most likely scenario of the three, but in a salary-cap league, the receiving team would have to offload just as much money if not more in a trade.

Per Demovsky's source, the only player who could potentially make sense in a swap would be Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson. As the source points out, though, that would be a blockbuster trade, but it's extremely unlikely.

“The only real way to trade him before June 1 is for another player with a bad contract,” the source told Demovsky. “And that won’t happen.”

Wilson signed a five-year, $242.5 million contract when he was traded from the Seattle Seahawks to the Broncos this past offseason. 

Like it or not, the Packers and Rodgers seem to be stuck together for at least one more season.

He's exceeded expectations and proven his doubters wrong before, so anything can happen for the rest of this season and into 2023, but this is slowly but surely starting to look like a relationship that stayed together for just a bit too long.