Don’t expect to see Aaron Rodgers on a football sideline following his playing career.
The Jets quarterback said Tuesday he has no plans to trod the same path as the likes of former NFL stars Philip Rivers and Deion Sanders, who have coached high school and college football following their playing careers.
And certainly, he has no designs on an NFL coaching job.
“Listen, there’s not a lot of players who turned into great coaches,” Rodgers said following practice Tuesday. “I think there’s some reasons for that. But I’ve given a lot to this game. This game has given me a lot. And I think when I’m done, I’m gonna be done, done.”
Given Rodgers’ leadership skills and football acumen, it’s a natural question to ask.
His teammates and coaches have talked almost nonstop about his impact around the building at 1 Jets Drive.
When he speaks publicly, in some ways it resembles a coach talking, with Rodgers being asked about the state of the offense and the culture of the team.
His peers, clearly, have immense respect for what he has to say.
And at 39 years old, there is a natural limit to how many years he will play quarterback for the Jets.
He is right, though, there haven’t been many coaches — at least in the NFL — who come from playing backgrounds.
Of the 32 current NFL coaches, Tennessee’s Mike Vrabel and Houston’s DeMeco Ryans are the only two who had extensive playing careers in the league.
The highest-profile coaches to fit into the category are probably Mike Ditka, Jim Harbaugh and Mike Singletary, though Singletary was not particularly successful as a head coach.
In college, where coaches returning to their alma maters is not entirely unheard of, it is slightly more common. Harbaugh at Michigan, Georgia’s Kirby Smart and Clemson’s Dabo Swinney — who played for Alabama — are all examples.
But Rodgers does not sound like he is plotting a return to the University of California, though the school might be glad to have him boosting its profile after being left out in conference realignment that recently decimated he Pac-12.
“I’d love to help out friends’ kids or something, or high schoolers,” Rodgers said. “But I think when my time in this league is done, that’s my time.”