Only the Green Bay Packers could have two Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterbacks on their roster back-to-back, and at one point, unbeknown to them, even at the same time.Before Aaron Rodgers there was Brett Favre, and before Brett Favre, it was Bart Starr, who brought Green Bay its first two Super Bowl championships. The Packers were unaware at the time that they had two Hall of Fame quarterbacks on the teamGettyBut the transition period between Favre and Rodgers, who had spent three seasons behind the 11-time Pro Bowler, was not a seamless one. Entering year 17 in the NFL, Favre contemplated retirement and ended up announcing that decision publicly. However, the veteran suddenly had a change of heart, tried to come back to training camp, and that’s when things began to turn sour. According to Peter King, then of Sports Illustrated, the divorce of Favre and the Packers was a brutal one, with former general manager Ted Thompson unwilling to trade the quarterback to his preferred teams of NFC North division rivals, Chicago Bears or the Minnesota Vikings.“When Favre announced his retirement in March, it stunned the world,” King wrote.“The Packers wanted a decision from Favre in March on whether he’d play in 2008, and if that decision wasn’t forthcoming, they were giving the job to Aaron Rodgers, who’d sat and learned the job behind Favre for three years. Favre wasn’t ready to commit, so he retired.“He said he was having second thoughts. Lots of them. He said he still wanted to play. He said he was thinking of asking for his release so he could play somewhere else. “July. Almost time for training camp. News broke that Favre still wanted to play, and he was going to try to force the Packers to release him so he could play elsewhere.“If Favre couldn’t go to Minnesota or Chicago, his preference was to force Thompson’s hand, and come back to play quarterback for the Packers. For Thompson, that was a non-starter.“‘I don’t know what I’ll do,’ Favre said. “It’s strange to think I’ll never play for the Packers again. Does it hurt? Hurt’s not quite it. To see those fans I love cheer for another quarterback, that’s the way it goes, but it’ll be hard.“Maybe I won’t play. If I don’t, I’ve had 17 great years in the NFL. Loved every minute of it. Loved playing in Green Bay.”Favre spent 16 years in Green BayGetty“Favre had a couple of realistic options. Commissioner Roger Goodell told him if he sat for a while, maybe a team that got a quarterback injury would reach out to acquire him.“Or he could agree to go to Tampa Bay or the Jets; both teams had been granted permission to talk to Cook and Favre.“But Favre wanted to play for the Vikings, or possibly the Bears. Both needed passers. Next option: the Packers. “Ted told me, ‘Aaron’s our starter,'”Favre said at one point. “I asked if I could compete for the job. He said, ‘That is not an option.’ He said, ‘Coming up there obviously is not good. Things have changed. We’ve moved on.’ He basically said, ‘You’re not going to play here.’ ”We now know that just a few days later, the New York Jets made a trade to acquire Favre in exchange for a conditional fourth-round pick in the 2009 draft. There, he would play just one season in the Big Apple before signing with the team he wanted to sign with all along, the Vikings.Rodgers took over the reins from Favre once he was traded to the JetsGettyIn Minnesota, he saw out his 19th and 20th season, retiring at the age of 41. In his four meetings against Green Bay, he split a pair at Lambeau Field, and finished with a 2-2 record. As Favre was seeing out his career in pastures new, the Packers were ushering in a brand new superstar, who unexpectedly fell into their laps in the 2005 draft, with the Packers holding the 24th overall pick. Long-time sports announcer Kevin Harlan recalled on NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal how his father Bob, who was then the President and CEO of the team, and the Packers went about drafting Rodgers. Harlan then went on to talk about how he sees similarities with how the Packers went about drafting Rodgers, and how they acquired Favre, via a trade with the Atlanta Falcons, back in 1992.“My dad was with the Packers for 37 years, and when Ted Thompson, then the general manager, pulled my dad aside and said ‘I need your permission to draft Aaron Rodgers who has fallen to number 24 [in the draft]’,” Harlan recounted.“I said I think we’re getting the steal of the draft and they were going to spend a first-round pick and ‘reach’, I guess in some people’s opinion, on Aaron Rodgers. And it turned out to be one of the great draft choices in the history of the NFL and certainly for the Packers. Rodgers was under center for the Packers for 18 seasonsGettyRodgers won four NFL MVP awards when playing for Green BayGetty“The same situation was true with Brett Favre,” Harlan continued. “My dad had hired Ron Wolf to be the general manager in Green Bay. The story my dad tells me is that they were going to the final game of the season at old Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, and my dad and Ron Wolf always sat together in the press box. “Wolf put down his briefcase and looked at my dad and said, ‘I’m going to go look at their back-up quarterback and if he’s as good as I remember him when I saw his pro day, I wanna go after him.’“So he gets out the flip card and he’s looking…’Brett… Favre… Brett Favre?’ you know who had, by that time, in Atlanta under Jerry Glanville had really had kind of a weird presence, and it was not working out.“He goes down there, watches him throw, comes back up, they fly home that night to Green Bay and he said ‘that’s our quarterback of the future.’“So they went to the executive committee which is a seven-man committee a couple of days later, telling them what they were going to do, and the executive committee said ‘that’s the most ridiculous thing we’ve ever heard.“Why would you trade our number one pick for a backup in Atlanta who doesn’t play and has got a lot of things going on off the field?’ “And my dad said, ‘Ron could you leave the room a second?’ He did, and he goes ‘we gave this guy full control of football. If we back out now, we will never hire another quality general manager in the history of this organization. We’ve gotta let him make this move.’“So he comes back in, they okay the trade, they make it with Atlanta, they get Brett Favre, and the same basic scenario happened with Rodgers. It’s interesting as those are back-to-back Hall of Fame quarterbacks.”It did not take long for Rodgers to emerge as a superstar.After having a 6-10 record in his first season as the primary signal caller, despite throwing for 4,038 yards, Rodgers bounced back in 2009, and threw for 4,434 yards, 30 touchdowns and just seven interceptions, seeing him earn his first Pro Bowl nod. Rodgers would go on to make another nine Pro Bowl appearances in the next 12 seasons, winning four NFL MVP awards, and took Green Bay to Super Bowl XLV glory in 2011. On the other hand, in 2010, after 20 seasons and at the tender age of 41, Favre hung up his cleats for good this time, finishing his career having thrown for an average of 4,038 passing yards a season, 29 touchdowns and 19 interceptions. NFL's Greatest......Ranking the top 10......Quarterbacks of all-time – Can anyone better Tom Brady?Wide receivers of all-time – Does Randy Moss or Jerry Rice come out on top?Running backs of all-time – Stacking Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Walter Payton, Emmitt Smith and moreTight ends of all-time – How does Travis Kelce compare?The NFL ironman, who played a record 299 consecutive games in his career, would go on to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2016.Meanwhile, Rodgers is set to play his 21st season in the NFL, though the 2025 campaign is likely to be his final, though he will be donning the Black and Gold of the Pittsburgh Steelers having departed from the Green Bay back in 2023.Looking back on his 18-year career in Green Bay, there is no doubt that Rodgers is one of the organization’s greats and will too see his name enshrined into the Hall of Fame when his career is all said and done. With the Packers having somewhat of a trend in producing some of the NFL’s all-time great quarterbacks, could history repeat itself thrice?Over to you, Jordan Love. Stay up to date with the latest from the NFL across all platforms – follow our NFL Facebook page, subscribe to our talkSPORT End Zone YouTube channel for all the offseason news, interviews and more.