Murphy, Rodgers have most on the line

For my money, the two people with the most at stake in the Green Bay Packers organization the next two years are Mark Murphy and Aaron Rodgers.

The Packers, of course, have missed the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since 2006. That led to Mike McCarthy’s firing as coach last December and the hiring of Matt LaFleur to turn things around.

But of all the principals in the franchise, Murphy, the team’s CEO, and Rodgers, the quarterback, have the most on the line.

Murphy because over the last two years he has transformed the Packers’ hierarchy and made the football management team his own. He changed a setup that featured a general manager as football czar, and instead has his GM, coach and football operations director all report to him.

Murphy’s stated reason for the change was to foster better communication, and I haven’t heard anything to suggest he’s making daily football decisions. Still, the football buck now stops with him. He, after all, personally hired not just the GM (Brian Gutekunst) but the coach (LaFleur), too.

This is very much Murphy’s team. Rodgers has more than ever at stake, too.

Last year he signed a contract extension that at the time made him the highest-paid player in the league ($33.5 million average). Though he has since been passed in average pay, the Packers made an enormous investment in him that included $66.9 million cash last year. That contract alone carries great responsibility.

Rodgers also clearly had soured on McCarthy’s offense and emerged from the wreckage of 2018 in a place much more to his liking this year. He now has a new, young coach who runs one of the cutting-edge schemes Rodgers has admired from afar.

And, at age 35, Rodgers is hitting the home stretch of his career. He could quit tomorrow and be a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, but if he returns to form after two seasons of injuries he could still accomplish big things in the final quarter of his career. He could play his way into the conversation of the best handful of quarterbacks ever.

On the other hand, if the Packers slog through two more seasons missing out on the playoffs and not challenging for the Super Bowl, things will get nasty in Titletown. The necks on the line more than all others are Murphy’s and Rodgers’: Murphy as the franchise’s self-appointed architect, and Rodgers as an older quarterback who is paid to carry the team and now has an offense more to his liking.

Rodgers has seen enough in 14 previous seasons in the NFL to know what’s at stake.

“I’ve got to perform,” Rodgers said Thursday after the first practice of training camp, “otherwise they’re going to find somebody who can come in here and do it just as well for less. We all know that. Everybody’s expendable. Every great player that I’ve been around here just about has either finished up somewhere else or had a disappointing end to their time here.

“So, I’d like to not be one of those guys, but I’m realistic enough to realize it’s happened to a lot of my close friends. I need to play well, I expect to play well, expect for us to be successful, and I expect this not to be an issue moving forward.”

As for the immediate future, 2019, good luck predicting how that will go. The last three times the Packers changed the head coach they finished 8-8, and that despite having a future Hall of Famer (Brett Favre) at quarterback all three times. That’s exactly the position they’re in now.

This year is potentially different because of the huge investment Gutekunst made on defense. He signed three expensive free agents (Za’Darius Smith, Preston Smith and Adrian Amos) and used his two first-round draft picks (Rashan Gary and Darnell Savage) on that side of the ball.

If Gutekunst knows what he’s doing, defensive coordinator Mike Pettine now has the personnel to finish in the top 10 in points and yards allowed. The Packers haven’t had that since 2010, and if it happens, it should show up in the winloss record.

But the Packers also have a rookie head coach who’s only 39 and is going to make rookie mistakes. He’s installing a new offense, and there will be growing pains.

Yes, with Rodgers at quarterback, anything is possible. Would it be a shock if the Packers finish 12-4? No. But recent history suggests 8-8 is the better guess.

The truth is, no one knows whether LaFleur will be a good head coach. We’ll have to wait until he has done the job for a while.

What we do know, though, is Murphy and Rodgers don’t have much time for a rebuild. For them, this is a two-year project, at most.

HANNAH SCHROEDER / JOURNAL SENTINEL Aaron Rodgers is now running the more modern NFL offense that he coveted, but he also has even more responsibility to get the Packers back to playing at an elite offensive level.