Well, well, well, look who it is. We're back together for the first time in more than a month.

We're not on peak rock. We're not on sky. We're not on NBC. And that's all after the Olympics. But for now, here we are coming into your home, into your phone, into wherever you may be listening or watching. It's Chris Simms. It's Mike Florio, PFT Live and Chris Simms on button. A joint production. Chris, great to see you again. What's up, dude? How are you? I know it's been a while. Like I'm actually been getting the itch a little bit lately to be like, man, there's some stuff to talk about with Florio. I know you and I have been texting. We always stay in contact.

That way, but not a lot of like face-to-face combo. So, you know, it is good to see you. I mean, as ugly as you are, it's great to see you. So hello. I do have to remember when we get to about the middle of October, and I asked myself, why do I spend so much time dealing with this asshole? I will remember that during the month of late June into late July, I missed you. So I mind myself for that. When I'm ready to strangle you at some point, coming up around week eight or week nine.

Plenty of stuff to talk about. And let's start with your best friend and my mortal enemy, at least from his perspective, Aaron Rodgers, back with the Green Bay Packers. Your reaction when you saw that the end of the day, he shows up and he gets his 2023 contract year eliminated.

Yeah, I mean, listen, I wasn't shocked. I think this is something you and I hit on a ton, you know, towards the end of our break, June, all of that, you know, just how aware Aaron Rodgers is of his legacy, everything that's going on around him.

I always thought he was going to come back and play, you know, as we talked a lot in the spring. I mean, he's only got so many years left here of like prime play, you know, he's at the end of his prime.

And I just can't imagine him sitting out a year or doing something like that and just throw that away for nothing. So I'm not shocked. He didn't have a whole lot of other avenues to go down to as far as other things he could do other than sit out for a year.

And I think he loves football too much. And like I said, legacy aware. So I don't know. I mean, I wasn't surprised at all. How about you?

Well, I wasn't surprised that he showed up because I thought he was going to now. I got a little concerned on Friday when the sportsbooks start taking the Packers bets off the board because of rumors you retire. But, you know, it sounds like Rodgers Camp knew exactly where to place those rumors to get the desired effect to get the attention of the Packers.

Because I think it did. And something happened over the weekend to bring them together. But Chris, I look at this and I say,

why didn't he get more? Why don't you get a written commitment that they'll trade you or cut you after this season? Just getting rid of the 2023 year of his contract, which he surely was never going to operate under any way. That doesn't feel like much given the leverage that he seemed to have.

Yeah, I'm with you there. It's not much. But I don't know like how much he could have possibly got out of this without like cutting off his nose despite his own face. I think that's the other thing to me, at least like when I watch other TV programs and things like that.

You know, I don't think he's it's not about money as you said a million times. It's not about that. I don't think he wants more money from Green Bay. And then what they can't sign any players this year or maybe through training camp if they need something like that.

You know, so yeah, I'm with you. I thought maybe we'd have a little bit more of a hard line concession as far as like once this season it's over.

But from everything I understand it basically is that anyways, you know, I mean, it looks like that at least. Okay. Yeah, you mentioned 2023 off the table. Listen, if we get to 2022. Listen, we're going to talk about this all year long.

This Green Bay really want to deal with this again. All off season once again. And my final point, too, to why they don't need it and writing at least with this little thing, Mike, at least for me that pops up is.

If they go into year three of the Jordan loved experiment and he's still not playing, then it's official. It was a stupid draft pit. It was a waste of a pick. That so to me, they're they're a little forced in the corner because of that little situation. I think to go along with it, which I think helps.

To answer your point on why the Packers would want to go through this again next year. Why not? They won. They kept their mouths shut except for Mark Murphy calling Aaron Rogers a complicated fellow at one point.

But for the most part, they kept their head low, their mouth shut and they knew he was going to come back. And I think Chris, the same reason you articulated for why he showed up this year applies next year. He's only got so many spins of the wheel left.

He's not going to sit out next year, just like he wasn't going to sit out this year. And the fact that he has no clear path out after this season concerns me, especially because I was on with Paul Allen voice of the Vikings on KFA.

And he's the guy who really got this started when he reported the morning of the draft that the 49ers had tried to trade for Aaron Rogers, just as the draft was approaching in the packer said, no way, no, how.

Paul Allen believes that Rogers was told or at least led to believe the Packers were going to trade him this off.

...