4. Aaron Rodgers

Team: Green Bay Packers

Position: QB

Experience: 14 Years

Aaron Rodgers has long been considered the most talented quarterback in the NFL. He has the ability to  throw the ball down the field. He can move in the pocket and is a threat to get yards on the ground. He is deadly accurate. Anything a coach would want their quarterback to do, Rodgers has shown that he is more than capable of doing at a high-level over the course of his 14-year career. He really doesn’t have much left to prove to anyone about his skills and his talents on the field.

Yet, we enter this year with arguably the most questions about Rodgers’ game since he took over for Green Bay Packers legend, Brett Favre in 2008. Since he’s been a starter, he’s operated in one system under one head coach. However, the Packers choose to fire Mike McCarthy during the season last year. As is the trend in the NFL today, they sought a coach from the Sean McVay coaching tree to replace him in Matt LaFleur. He was the Rams offensive coordinator in 2017. He also has experience working under another offensive genius as LaFluer was the quarterbacks coach in Atlanta with Kyle Shanahan serving as the offensive coordinator.

Rodgers has become accustomed to calling the shots from the line of scrimmage and with the time and knowledge he had working with McCarthy he was essentially his own offensive coordinator. By the end of McCarthy’s tenure there was a noticeable rift between the two. The hope is that removing that toxicity in the facility and giving the offense a facelift will unlock a version of Rodgers that is even better than what we’ve grown used to over the last decade stretch of his playing career.

The front office has done a better job of trying to surround their star quarterback with elite talent. Davante Adams might not have made our list but he is a consensus choice for a slot among the top five receivers in the league today. If the younger members of the receivers room—Geronimo Allison and Marquez Valdes-Scantiling—can continue to improve this will be one of the better group of wideouts Rodgers has had. Pair that with a full season of Aaron Jones at running back and the Packers could look completely different on the offensive end under LaFleur’s coaching.

A return of peak Rodgers is not out of the question. If the rest of the team steps up to meet his level of play and production then he could be in line for another MVP season. NFL fans know how good he is but with just one Super Bowl victory he has yet to stand atop the pedestal of greatest of all-time among his quarterback peers and other noteworthy Hall of Fame players. With a new age of QB coming to make their mark—Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Lamar Jackson, and Kyler Murray to name a few—time is running out on Rodgers reign as the league’s best quarterback.