INDIANAPOLIS — Packers GM Brian Gutekunst doesn’t know when quarterback Aaron Rodgers will decide whether to play next year — and, if so, where — but he believes it will be before the start of the league year March 16.
“There’s a lot of decisions that have to be made before that,” he said Tuesday at the NFL Scouting Combine. “So that would be helpful. But I would think we know something before that.”
The Bears and football world are waiting to see whether Rodgers retires or requests a trade. Asked whether other GMs have called about Rodgers, Gutekunst said “not a single person.”
Rodgers was dissatisfied with Gutekunst last season but softened his tone in the last month. In between, the Packers earned the No.1 seed in the NFC playoffs, only to lose at home to the 49ers in the second round. Last month, Rodgers won his second-straight MVP award.
“I think he’s got a very tough process that he goes through to get himself ready to play every season,” Gutekunst said. “It’s a big commitment. And he’s done that for a long time — and it certainly shows with the results. I think he feels he needs to do that, to play the way at the level he plays at. And so I know that that weighs on him, but I think he’s going through that now.”
The Packers, he said, are prepared to offer Rodgers a new contract. He is entering the last year of his deal.
