Aaron Rodgers-Shailene Woodley Breakup Theory and Whether It Dooms Broncos

There's plenty that's hush-hush involving the Denver Broncos, including how many billionaires are considering buying the team now that it's officially for sale. But the franchise's desire to acquire longtime Green Bay Packer Aaron Rodgers as quarterback has qualified as an open secret ever since general manager George Paton hired Packer offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett to serve as Denver's new head coach last month. And supporters of that concept have suggested that Rodgers would be receptive to such a move since his fiancée, actress Shailene Woodley, is said to live at least part-time in Boulder.

Now, however, rumormongers with a graduate degree in tea-leaf reading are hinting that the Rodgers-Woodley nuptials are off. The fact that Woodley wasn't with Rodgers when he picked up his latest MVP award at the annual NFL Awards ceremony on February 10 has convinced many sports fans that the unconfirmed split must be real, and might make Denver a lot less attractive to Rodgers.

That's how crazy things have gotten in Broncos country.

The gossip mill has been grinding on this subject for months. The headline of a December 20 piece in Life & Style asked: "Are Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers Still Together? Their Relationship Status Amid Split Rumors." The evidence cited: Woodley "did not publicly acknowledge the quarterback’s 38th birthday on December 2. Moreover, the birthday boy was spotted out on the big day with Shailene nowhere in sight."

The hilariously named Suggest website added more fuel to the inferno with a January 8 item labeled "Aaron Rodgers Rumor: Allegedly Broke Up With Shailene Woodley After Spending Christmas Apart." But writer Ariel Gordon offered this caveat: "While we can’t say for certain if Shailene Woodley and Aaron Rodgers are still together at this very second, all we can say is that we have no reason to believe they’ve broken up. It’s unclear how the couple spent the holidays, but even if they weren’t together, that isn’t proof that their relationship is over."

True enough. But for whatever reason, a slew of new pieces about a Rodgers-Woodley fracture began popping up this week, on sites such as itsgame7.com, awesemo.com and blacksportsonline.com, and most of them use the month-old Suggest article as a source. But not totalsports.com, which instead nods to the National Enquirer.

The topic caught the attention of Zach Bye and Brandon Stokely of 104.3 The Fan, Denver's best sports-talk radio team. During their broadcast yesterday, Bye gave at least a modicum of credence to the possibility that Rodgers wouldn't want to join the Broncos after bidding adieu to a home-state love, while Stokely scoffed at the notion, contending that his bromance with Hackett would carry more weight than a squelched romance with Woodley.

This conversation took place prior to the NFL Honors broadcast, when chatter about Rodgers quickly began flooding Twitter. One person asked, "Anyone else notice that Aaron Rodgers is sitting alone front row for NFL honors and Shailene Woodley is nowhere to be found?" Another noted, "Aaron Rodgers didn't thank Shailene Woodley, if you want to read into that at all re: breakup rumors."

The key word in that last phrase is "if" — and it pertains to the Broncos, too. Woodley is hardly a constant presence in Colorado; she can't be found on the Pearl Street Mall every weekend, acting out scenes from Divergent for pocket change. And should Rodgers actually want out of Green Bay, there will be no shortage of suitors despite the controversy last season over his highly misleading comments about COVID-19 vaccinations, not to mention the wisdom of getting medical advice from comedian Joe Rogan.

But given the parade of below-average QBs the Broncos have fielded since the 2016 retirement of Peyton Manning (anyone want to defend Brock Osweiler? Trevor Siemian? Drew Lock?), most Denver fans would be willing to put up with Rodgers even if footage from the January 6 insurrection surfaced showing him standing on Nancy Pelosi's desk.

Until then, however, we wish Aaron and Shailene all the best — whether they're together or apart.