49ers tried to trade for Aaron Rodgers in 2021: How QB reacted to possibly playing for Kyle Shanahan

After missing nearly all of the 2023 season, Aaron Rodgers will be making his return to the field on Monday night on the road against the San Francisco 49ers. 

It’s a fitting setting for Rodgers, who grew up as a 49ers fan in Northern California. When he was coming out of college in 2005, Rodgers wanted to play for the 49ers, but the team passed him over to take Alex Smith with the No. 1 overall pick that year. 

In 2021, the 49ers tried to make things right when they called the Packers about making a possible trade for Rodgers. At the time, the veteran quarterback had made it known that he was unhappy in Green Bay and that he wanted out. 

With Rodgers getting set to return to San Francisco this week, Mike Silver of the San Francisco Chronicle asked him about the trade speculation from 2021 and if he had ever thought about what it would be like to play for Kyle Shanahan. 

“I mean, I’ve thought about that from time to time, and I’ve had conversations with people who think that’s an interesting idea,” Rodgers said of playing for Shanahan. “I don’t know; it’s one of those ‘what if?’ things. He is a phenomenal play-caller. I think he’s a fantastic coach. I think anything can work if two people can find a common ground. The common ground for great relationships is respect.”

Rodgers thinks that he would thrive in Shanahan’s offense. 

“So, even though Kyle seems to be — I don’t know what the right word is, cause I’m kind of speaking out of turn and don’t know him that well — but he seems to be very headstrong, which I think is a phenomenal attribute,” Rodgers said. “It’s almost like, had that imaginary world happened, with his genius, what would you actually need to change? [I feel like] it would work because he’s a genius and I have a lot of years of experience.”

Shanahan clearly feels that Rodgers would have been a good fit for his offense, which would explain why he called the Packers about making a possible trade just before the 2021 NFL Draft. During an interview back then, Shanahan confirmed the rumors that he did actually call Packers coach Matt LaFleur to see if he’d be interested in trading his Super Bowl-winning quarterback.  

“The exact truth is, I don’t want to wake up the next day on Friday and see Aaron Rodgers, one of the best quarterbacks in this league, traded without doing any due diligence on it, so I called Matt and asked him if there was anything to it and Matt told me I’d be wasting my time [trying to make a trade],” Shanahan said in May 2021. 

After the Packers said no, the 49ers ended up making a blockbuster trade in the draft that enabled them to land Trey Lance with the third overall pick that year. 

Although the 49ers called about a possible Rodgers trade, the QB viewed the scenario as a pipe dream, because he knew Green Bay would never send him to an NFC rival. 

“I thought there was a slim, slim possibility,” Rodgers told the Chronicle. “I just didn’t really ever think the Packers would trade me within the conference. There seemed to be some kismet (as) in [2005], with me being from Northern California, and San Fran. And as much as it seemed like not the front end of my career, but now the twilight of my career, going back home to my childhood team would have been some fated circumstance, it never really felt like it was gonna be a reality.”

Two years after the trade drama with the 49ers, the Packers finally ended up dealing the quarterback away to the New York Jets. 

With Rodgers now 40 years old, it’s looking more and more like he’ll never get to suit up for the 49ers, but he will get a chance to beat them when the Jets open their season at Levi’s Stadium on Monday night.