The Detroit Lions are finally rid of the pest that is Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers is finally a New York Jet, and thus gone is a pest the Detroit Lions no longer have to deal with.

Finally, it’s done. On Monday afternoon, the Green Bay Packers and New York Jets agreed to a deal to send quarterback Aaron Rodgers to New York. The Packers will now go fully into the Jordan Love Era, and the rest of the NFC North is rejoicing.

Rodgers yelled to a crowd at Soldier Field how much he owned the Chicago Bears, and that’s undeniably true with a 24-5 career record against Chicago. But the Lions aren’t too far behind, as Rodgers has an 18-8 career record against them.

Rodgers’ final game as a Packer was of course a Week 18 loss last season to the Lions. And his final pass as a Packer, as the icing on the cake, was intercepted by Lions safety Kerby Joseph. The Lions also beat the Packers in Week 9 last season, and more broadly the Lions have a three-game winning streak against the Packers. Rodgers started the 2021 season finale, so it’s a three-game winning streak in games he started too.

Detroit Lions are finally rid of the pest that is Aaron Rodgers

Rodgers of course took over for Brett Favre as the Packers’ starting quarterback in 2008. Occasional injuries and a couple meaningless regular season finales reduced his number of starts, and reduced his raw numbers, over 26 games over those 15 seasons.

In those 26 games against the Lions, Rodgers completed nearly 65 percent of his passes for 6,551 yards (252 yards per game) with 54 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and a 105.1 passer rating. Those numbers are not too far from his career numbers against the Bears.

Rodgers’ pure greatness as a quarterback has made him a thorn in the Lions’ side for a long time. Add in his ever-more eccentric personality, and you have a quarterback only fans of the team he’s playing for like–and that may not even be a 100 percent sentiment.

Rodgers leaving the Packers means the Lions will never play against him again. He is surely only going to play a year or two for the Jets before he likely calls it a career. The cross-conference, cross-division scheduling between the NFC North and AFC East just happened last year, and it will happen next in 2026.

Rodgers will be long-gone by then…..doing whatever it is he will do in retirement.