Sky-high cap number gives Aaron Rodgers…

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Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has said that he’ll make a decision about his future before the start of free agency. The Packers haven’t said that they desperately need him to do so.

But they do.

As of 4:00 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 16, the Packers will have to comply with the new salary cap. They currently are, via Spotrac.com, nearly $30 million over the limit. And Rodgers has a cap number that hits the books in eight days of $46.66 million.

By next Wednesday, then, the Packers need to either dump all of his $26.47 million salary by trading him or drop his cap number dramatically by extending his contract. That gives Rodgers significant power over the Packers, if he’s willing to use it.

Rodgers could, in theory, tell the Packers that he’s willing to stay, but that he doesn’t want to sign a new contract. That he’s willing to honor the contract he has signed. This would force the Packers to figure out how to comply with the cap, with one player who counts for more than 22 percent of it.

And here’s the ultimate chaos option, if Rodgers is willing to go full-blown Joker on the Packers. He can force them to fit his number under the cap, and he then can retire after they’ve slashed and burned player contracts. Then, in late July, he can pull a Brett Favre, unretiring and immediately resurrecting his $26.47 million salary.

When Favre did it 14 years ago, the Packers had more than enough space to absorb and hold his $12 million salary while engineering an acceptable trade. The Packers surely won’t have $26.47 million in surplus cap space come July, forcing them to move quickly to cut Rodgers or trade him, if he suddenly shows up again.

It doesn’t mean Rodgers will do any of this. But he’s smart enough to understand his options, and to recognize the power he has over the Packers.

Here’s where it becomes relevant. If, as we’ve heard, the Packers have given quiet approval to Rodgers’s agent to line up a trade to a specific list of teams and if Rodgers wants to play for a team that isn’t on that list (e.g., the 49ers), Rodgers could push this thing to the brink in the hopes of forcing his way to the team of his choosing.

Maybe that’s why he’s taking his time. With each passing hour, the Packers get closer to the worst-case scenario of having to create enough cap space to absorb his cap number in 2022. If Rodgers waits until next Wednesday afternoon to make his move, maybe he can squeeze the Packers to trade him to the 49ers or to some other team they’d rather not see him join.

None of this is a prediction as to what he’ll do. But it’s important to understand the power that he has.

In past years, Rodgers wouldn’t have done anything that would have made him locally (or nationally) unpopular. His heel turn in 2021 suggests that he possibly wouldn’t hesitate to play hardball with a franchise that, for years, has played hardball with him. He definitely has the ability to make things very uncomfortable for the Packers currently and, possibly, in late July.