TE Richard Rodgers Signs with Philadelphia Eagles

Tight end Richard Rodgers has signed a free agent contract with the Philadelphia Eagles.

#Packers free agent TE Richard Rodgers is signing a 1-year deal with the #Eagles, source said. He goes to a place that uses the TE as much as anyone to reboot his career. He hopes to recreate the success from 2015, when he had 8 TDs.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 4, 2018

A 2014 third round pick, Rodgers caught a career-low 12 passes in 2017, fighting for scraps of playing time behind Martellus Bennett and Lance Kendricks.

What this means for the Packers

In our season recap post on Rodgers, we wrote that the big tight end had maxed out his skills years ago:

At a certain point in his career, a player becomes what he’s going to be, bumping up against the ceiling of his skills and abilities.

For Richard Rodgers, it seems like that happened about three and a half years ago.

Since then, we’ve known exactly what to expect from Rodgers. A big, lumbering tight end with dependable hands and inconsistent blocking, Rodgers is good for a handful of decent grabs a year along with the occasional highlight.

The highlights don’t get much bigger for a part-time player than what Rodgers put up in Green Bay. His Hail Mary catch in Detroit will live in fans’ memories forever, and his playoff touchdowns against the Dallas Cowboys in 2014 and 2016 are beautiful moments of football.

The goat

But the Packers need more from their players farther down the depth chart, and with his limited speed, Rodgers was never going to be a big special teams contributor.

With Lance Kendricks on the roster, the Packers don’t need immediate depth behind Jimmy Graham, but now that Rodgers is out of the picture for good, it would be even less surprising to see the Packers snag a tight end in the draft.