One of Aaron Rodgers’ longest-tenured Green Bay Packers teammates wrote a touching farewell Tuesday.
After protecting his blind side for the last decade, left tackle David Bakhtiari paid tribute to the traded quarterback on Instagram.
“I hate goodbyes, and this one especially,” Bakhtiari wrote. “The chapter is over on this one, but this friendship is a lifetime. You’ve been so instrumental in my life and I just wanna say thank you. And I love you brother.”
Bakhtiari then decreed “enough with the sobby stuff” when introducing a collage of moments from their time together. He used the song Photograph from Rodgers’ “favorite band,” Nickelback.
“Don’t cry because it’s over,” he concluded, “smile because it happened.”
Bakhtiari helped shield Rodgers from 2013 to 2022. He made three Pro Bowls during that time, but injuries have deterred the lineman in recent years.
When speaking on Mike Silver’s Open Mike podcast over the weekend, the 31-year-old reiterated past comments about Green Bay entering a “rebuild” without Rodgers.
“I’m not saying that we’re going to be bad. I’m not saying we’re going to be good. I don’t know, and that’s the beauty,” he said. No one really knows how good they are. We start the season, everyone is batting 1.000. No one has any losses. No one has any wins. And let the season play out however it may be.”