Packers QB Aaron Rodgers leaves no doubt, wants 'to play for the New York Jets'

But the four-time NFL MVP quarterback made it abundantly clear on “The Pat McAfee Show” on YouTube on Wednesday that he will no longer wear a Green Bay Packers uniform.

Rodgers arrived at that realization after, he said, the organization decided it didn’t want him anymore after 18 seasons with the franchise and 15 as its starting quarterback.

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Saying his 57-minute appearance on his favorite new-school media outlet was to tell “exactly the state of affairs,” Rodgers said he reached a decision last Friday on playing in 2023 and doing so with the Jets after it became clear the Packers want to move forward with 2020 first-round draft pick Jordan Love at quarterback instead of him.

“I made it clear my intention was to play and my intention was to play for the New York Jets,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers then emphasized that the delay in him joining the Jets hasn’t been caused by his indecision on whether he wants to play a 19th NFL season. It’s that the Packers haven’t been able to reach an accord with the Jets on trade compensation.

“I haven’t been holding anything up. At this point, it’s been compensation that the Packers are trying to get for me, and (them) kind of digging their heels in,” Rodgers said.

“The reality of the situation, it is what it is. The Packers would like to move on. They’ve let me know that in so many words. They’ve let other people know that in direct words.

“Because I still have that fire and I want to play and I would like to play in New York, it’s just a matter of getting that done at this point.

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“At this point, like I said, it’s my intention to play for the Jets. But I’m still under contract with the Packers.”

A Packers spokesman said Wednesday afternoon the club would have no comment on Rodgers’ remarks.

Rodgers said he entered his darkness retreat last month in southern Oregon thinking the Packers still wanted him to be their quarterback in 2023 but emerged hearing the opposite — that general manager Brian Gutekunst and the club wanted to move on from him and have Love, who has started only one game in his first three NFL seasons and has just 157 career regular-season snaps under his belt, to take over.

“They want to move on. They don’t want me to come back and that’s fine. They’re ready to move on with Jordan. That’s awesome,” Rodgers said. “I think Jordan is going to be a great player. He’s a great kid. He had a really good year this year, getting better on the look team. He’s got a bright future in front of him. They have a good young team.”

Rodgers, though, intimated he didn’t appreciate what team president/CEO Mark Murphy said last week during the WIAA girls state high school basketball tournament, where Murphy referred to Rodgers’ career in the past tense and said the team would take him back only if things didn’t work out the way the organization wanted them to.

Rodgers also suggested one of his chief complaints about the organization upon his training-camp return to the team in late July 2021 — that it didn’t treat its longest-tenured stars respectfully on their way out — was now applying to him. He mentioned McAfee’s co-host, ex-Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk, along with wide receivers Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb, pass rushers Julius Peppers and Clay Matthews and long-snapper Brett Goode by name as players who he felt were unceremoniously let go by the team.

“There’s just a way of doing things. You don’t want to bring them back? That’s fine. It’s a business. But there’s a way of doing it that allows the man to keep the dignity,” Rodgers said.

Regarding his own situation, Rodgers said he left Green Bay following his exit meetings in the aftermath of the team’s Jan. 8 season-ending loss to the Detroit Lions believing the team wanted him to remain as its quarterback and that he could take as much time as he needed to decide on whether he wanted to play in 2023.

“Everything I was told during the week I was in Green Bay was, ‘Take as long as you want,’ and, ‘We want you to retire a Packer. (If) you want to come back and play, obviously the door is wide open.’ So, that was the information I was going on,” Rodgers said.

“Now, when I came out of the darkness, something changed. I’m not exactly sure what that was, but something changed. I got back to my phone after five days off of it … and got back to hundreds of text messages and emails and all different things, I realized there had been a little bit of a shift. I heard from multiple people that I trust around the league, players mostly, that there was some shopping going on, that they were interested in actually moving me.”

Rodgers later said he “went into the darkness 90% retiring, 10% playing.” When he emerged, he said he was open to playing another season and wanted to examine his options for doing so.

“When I came out, I was really interested in what the landscape was, where Green Bay was at and obviously if I wanted to play, what were the options?” Rodgers said. “It was clear to me at that point that, although the Packers were going to say the right thing publicly, that they were ready to move on. Again, I don’t know what changed that or what moved that.

“I wish that in the beginning of the offseason that had been the conversation. Because I love direct communication. If they had just said, ‘Listen, we think it’s time to move in a different direction. We love you. You’re going to be a Packer Hall of Famer. You’re going to go into the (Pro Football) Hall (of Fame) as a Packer. We’re going to retire your number. But it’s time to move on.’ I would’ve said, ‘Thank you so much, just for telling me that. I really, really appreciate that. That means the world to me that you would tell me that.’

“Because I really believe that’s the sentiment. And that’s fine. It really is. It’s totally fine.”

Rodgers did confess, however, he was leaning toward retirement as he walked up the Lambeau Field tunnel arm-in-arm with Cobb after losing to the Loins, and that if the Packers had told him upon his post-darkness emergence they were still completely committed to him being their quarterback, he would have been reticent.

“That just wasn’t the sentiment that I felt throughout the season, especially even toward the end of the season. It felt like everybody was ready to move on. … Look, nobody wants to be the bad guy in this situation and, honestly, there isn’t at this point a bad guy as long as everything gets resolved the right way. They want to move on and now I want to play and that means me moving on, as well.”

Throughout the interview, Rodgers reiterated multiple times how much he loved Packers fans, teammates, coaches and staffers at every level of the organization, as well as the state of Wisconsin and the Green Bay/Fox Cities region.

But, he made it clear that in his mind, this is goodbye — and it’s only a matter of time until the Packers and Jets agree on the trade that makes his departure official.

“I (expletive) love that city. I love that organization and always going to have love for that organization,” Rodgers said. “The facts are, right now, they want to move on. And now so do I.”