{"id":558546,"date":"2026-04-01T16:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/558546\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T16:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T16:42:09","slug":"broncos-emerge-as-a-potential-option-for-aaron-rodgers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/558546\/","title":{"rendered":"Broncos emerge as a potential option for Aaron Rodgers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, then-Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers hijacked (perhaps not intentionally) the draft-day news cycle with word that the 49ers nearly traded for him<\/a>. It prompted speculation throughout round one of the 2021 draft that a trade could happen, with the Broncos emerging as a potential candidate.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t happen, obviously. Rodgers, the 2020 NFL MVP, won the 2021 NFL MVP award before spending one more year in Green Bay.<\/p>\n

Now, with (to date) only the Steelers linked to Rodgers during the 2026 free-agency cycle, Denver has potentially re-entered the chat.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s talk of the Broncos possibly bringing Rodgers in for a visit. The motivation comes from the possibility that current starter Bo Nix won\u2019t be fully and completely back to 100 percent when Week 1 rolls around.<\/p>\n

This notion conflicts with recent comments from Broncos owner Greg Penner, who declared at the NFL\u2019s annual meeting that Nix is \u201cahead of schedule<\/a>\u201d from the broken ankle he suffered late in the playoff win over the Bills and should be good to go for OTAs.<\/p>\n

Beyond the basic question of whether Nix will be healthy is whether Nix gives the Broncos the best chance to get to the Super Bowl and win it. Coach Sean Payton, who like any coach who has won a Super Bowl with one team is keenly aware that no coach has won a Super Bowl with two different franchises, may be tempted to roll the dice on a possible one-year upgrade (if Rodgers would truly be an upgrade) in order to finish the work the Broncos started in 2025.<\/p>\n

For Payton, the possibility of blazing a new trail for NFL coaches could be the thing that gets him to Canton. If he thinks Rodgers gives them a better chance to win the Super Bowl than Nix, why wouldn\u2019t Payton at least ponder the possibility?<\/p>\n

From Rodgers\u2019s perspective, which team gives him a better chance to walk away with a second Lombardi Trophy in his back pocket, the Steelers or the Broncos?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all very early. And it\u2019s not an April Fool\u2019s Day gag. The Broncos could be turning to Rodgers, at a time when the Steelers have assumed the position for the second straight offseason.<\/p>\n

If \u2014 and for now it\u2019s a big if \u2014 Rodgers ends up in Denver, he wouldn\u2019t play the Packers (unless the two teams meet in the Super Bowl, for the first time since the 1997 season). But he would make visits to the Jets, the Steelers, and one more trip to San Francisco, the team he wanted to draft him in 2005 and the team that tried to trade for him in 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five years ago, then-Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers hijacked (perhaps not intentionally) the draft-day news cycle with word that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":558547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-558546","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-nfl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=558546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/558547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=558546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=558546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=558546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}