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Left tackle David Bakhtiari played one stellar game in the opener of the 2023 season against the Bears, and perhaps that is fitting. Because we know now that it will be his last game of the season—he announced as much personally this week—and we know it is very probably his last game in a Green Bay uniform.
But he did say he wants to play again, and the fact that he has already undergone a fourth surgery and is slated to have a fifth surgery on his left knee, which has ben so troublesome since he tore the ACL in it back in December 2020, can be taken as an indication he still wants to get his body right and get back on the field.
If that happens, it is not likely to be in Green Bay. And former Packers backup quarterback Kurt Benkert thinks he knows where it will happen: Alongside another surgically repaired former Packer, Aaron Rodgers, with the New York Jets.
Here’s what Benkert wrote on Twitter, now called X: “Bakhtiari out for the year, plans to return in 2024. My guess – in New York. Double redemption tour for two old-pals. It’s all in the script.”
David Bakhtiari-to-Jets Long Rumored
Throughout the offseason, Bakhtiari, who is 33, was rumored to be heading to the Jets via trade, joining the two (Randall Cobb, Allen Lazard) Packers veterans who were joining Rodgers in the Big Apple. But a trade never materialized, either because the Packers wanted Bakhtiari as a veteran voice or because the Jets were worried about his knee, or a combination of both.
Now, speculation has it that Bakhtiari’s 11 years in Green Bay, which have included three Pro Bowls and two All-Pro selections, are over. He will end this season with just one game played, bringing his total to 13 in the past three seasons.
As veteran writer Pete Dougherty noted this week, when asked whether Bakhtiari would be back: “I just don’t see any way the Packers bring him back. They’ve been through this for a couple of years since he tried returning from his ACL. I just can’t imagine they’d keep doing it. Time to move on.”
Kurt Benkert Was Popular During Brief Tenure
Benkert, of course, had a brief but memorable tenure with the Packers as a popular backup quarterback, in 2021, until his release in the 2022 offseason. He took two kneel-down snaps with Green Bay in a blowout over the Bears, but was better known for knocking around Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio after Florio erroneously reported, then speculated, that the Packers did not have a backup quarterback because Rodgers thought “his homeopathic treatment would keep him from getting COVID.”
That was not true—the Packers had Benkert on the roster, but he had been placed in Covid protocol, too.
“This is just sh** journalism,” Benkert wrote back to Florio on Twitter. “1. Know the facts of a story before you make random ideas up and publish them. 2. It’s unprofessional to put words in people’s mouth. 1.6 (million) followers (with) 0 attention. Have to do something to get the numbers up, I guess.”
It remains to be seen, though, whether his Bakhtiari projection costs Benkert any popularity in his old home.
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