ITP #018: The Battles Of Green Bay - Favre, Rodgers & The Titletown Tantrums
By Simon Carroll
The Collapsing Pocket Podcast has been a staple part of many a UK NFL fan’s life since late 2016. Chewing the fat on all things football and many more subjects besides, it takes a distinctly lighthearted approach to the sport we love.
In the offseason, Si, Rob and Sam get serious and bring you a series of podcasts called ‘Inside The Pocket’ (ITP), where they look back at iconic people, events and moments in NFL history that have helped shape the game and make it what it is today. In this ITP, they dive into the recent histoy of one of the league’s most iconic franchises.
Some teams can’t find a franchise quarterback; The Packers have had two lead them for the past three decades. Yet in startling symmetry, both have not quite brought the silverware to Titletown that was expected of them, and both have seen the final years of their time in Green Bay mired in acrimony. Was it personal ego or institutional failure that saw first Brett Favre, and now Aaron Rodgers, fail to hit the heights their transcendent talent was capable of reaching?
ITP #018: The Battles Of Green Bay - Favre, Rodgers & The Titletown Tantrums
Please note, despite the three of them being raised well and growing up with very attentive mothers, the Collapsing Pocket Podcast is hosted by three working class northerners and is very much ‘not safe for work’. Whilst the ITP series is a much safer podcast to listen to with your kids in the room, there will still be instances where explicit language is used.
The Original Gunslinger
297 consecutive regular season starts. Over 71,000 yards, and 508 touchdowns. Not bad for a quarterback who, by his own admission, was a mess as a rookie with the Atlanta Falcons. A risky, remarkable trade by then Packers GM Ron Wolf gave Brett Favre a new lease of life, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Favre gave the Packers sixteen seasons of brilliance. Through untold instances of personal adversity, including an addiction to Vicodin, the Mississippi Gunslinger led Green Bay to thirteen winning seasons, eleven postseasons, and a Vince Lombardi Trophy, beating The New England Patriots 35-21 in Super Bowl 31. But should there have been more rings on Brett’s fingers?
Putting his body on the line came at a cost, and dalliances with retirement were frequent towards the end of Favre’s tenure in Titletown. With Aaron Rodgers waiting in the wings, one ‘unretirement’ too many led to a rather acrimonious split between a QB and franchise that had been synonymous with each other for the better part of a decade and a half. But if the Packers front office thought that Favre would exit quietly, they were in for a surprise…
The California Kid
Following Brett Favre is no mean feat, but Aaron Rodgers made it look simple. But his ascension to starting NFL quarterback was anything but smooth; as a high school kid he was short and lean, and received no scholarship offers from D1 schools. After lighting it up at a community college, he heads to the California Golden Bears, where he becomes one of the best college football quarterbacks in the nation.
In 2005, despite his high draft stock, Rodgers had to sit in the green room and watch Alex Smith be selected #1 overall by his hometown and boyhood team, the San Francisco 49ers. For the next several hours, Rodgers was made to sit and wait as 22 more selections were made before the Packers ended his misery and brought him to Wisconsin.
After three years of plotting his revenge backing up Favre, Rodgers was finally given the keys to the Green Bay offense in 2008. And much like his predecessor, he quickly became one of, if not THE, greatest quarterback in the NFL. Another Lombardi headed back to the frozen north, along with plenty of broken records and three MVP awards to his name – just like Favre achieved. Yet still the question remains – how have The Packers, with two of the greatest QB’s at the helm for the last three decades, not done better?
Rodgers vs McCarthy
On April 4th 2019, Tyler Dunne of Bleacher Report published a long-form article exposing a series of claims about the tenure of former head coach Mike McCarthy, and his relationship with Aaron Rodgers. This sensational article suggested that the two had NEVER seen eye to eye, and that stubbornness from the HC and a long-held grudge from the QB brought about the end of McCarthy’s tenure in title town.
A series of interviews with former Packers players and coaches lifts the lid on some quite extraordinary claims, which some have since been substantiated, whilst others have not. But could a supposed power battle within the walls of Lambeau Field be a reason as to why this franchise never quite achieved the success it was capable of? And why didn’t the front office intervene? Listen in to find out!