NFC Notes: Lions, Packers, Aaron Rodgers, Vikings

Lions

• NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport reports the Lions gave OC Ben Johnson, who informed teams he would not depart from Detroit this offseason, a “large raise” from the organization to return.

Packers

Packers QB Aaron Rodgers believes he can win another MVP award with the “right team,” but was noncommittal as to whether he’d return to Green Bay. 

“I think I can win MVP again in the right situation,” Rodgers said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN. “Right situation, is that Green Bay or is that somewhere else? I’m not sure. But I don’t think you should shut down any opportunity. Like I said during the season, that’s got to be both sides actually wanting to work together moving forward, and I think there’s more conversations to be had.”

Rodgers added that he’s not interested in being a part of a rebuilding process. 

“I think no player wants to be part of any type of rebuild; I said that years ago,” Rodgers said. “Reloads are a lot of fun because you feel like you’re close, you’re only a couple guys away. This game is about relationships, it’s about the players you play with and count on even if they don’t maybe show up huge in the stat book.”

As for impending free agents on the Packers, Rodgers mentioned that he views several players as “glue guys in the locker room,” but added that he must reflect on whether he’s ready for another season in the NFL. 

“There’s a lot of interesting names that we’ll see if there’s desire to re-sign certain guys that are glue guys in the locker room, [and that] will be an interesting conversation to be had,” Rodgers said. “Take all that away, I still need to mentally get to a point where I feel 100 percent locked in and ready to play a 19th season. And if I do, then we’ll rock and roll and figure that out. If I don’t, then we’ll go into the jungles for a while.” 

Vikings

Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah expects QB Kirk Cousins to be the team’s quarterback in 2023. Cousins will be in the final year of a deal he signed last offseason with Minnesota. 

“It’s our expectation that he’ll be our quarterback,” Adofo-Mensah said, via ESPN. “I can’t say exactly how that would look. We have everything at our disposal. We’ll consider all those things just like we would with everyone else on the roster.”

Adofo-Mensah said the team has had conversations with WR Justin Jefferson‘s agent, but no formal discussions about his contract have started yet.

“You’ve got a special player [and] a special person,” Adofo-Mensah said. “Those aren’t problems. Or at least, those are ‘champagne’ problems…We get back to that in the planning, but again it really starts from the player, the person, and we’ll work on solutions from there on.“