Watching Aaron Rodgers throw a football is poetry in motion. He’s clearly more intelligent than your average man. One of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history. No disputing that. But his legacy is more than a little complicated. Some baffling playoff flops. One Super Bowl to his name, many moons ago. For someone of his talent and high caliber of play, one championship seems too few.
But hey, Dan Marino never won the Big One. Some great QBs never do. That’s not the main point here. What I mean by Rodgers’ odd legacy is more to do with the way he carries himself off the field. Since leaving the Green Bay Packers for the New York Jets, it sure seems, by all accounts, like Rodgers has evolved into a better teammate and a more willing veteran mentor. Unfortunately, the Jets couldn’t reap the benefits of that this season once Rodgers tore his Achilles in Week 1.
…And now there’s been this whole to-do about his recovery, how he’s obliterated most realistic timelines with a new trendy surgery and hinted that he’d be ready to play sometime this season. Rodgers reneged on that once the Jets were eliminated from playoff contention, yet the team still activated him off injured reserve. Apparently that wasn’t his idea. He allegedly wanted to stay on IR, according to him.
Leading Fox Sports personality Nick Wright to go on the following rant:
When Wright spells out all the times Rodgers has misled the public in recent years by being disingenuous, it really is quite damning. To me, I’ve always taken what Rodgers has said with a grain of salt. Part of me wants to get a little butthurt that he has a superiority complex and pretty much insults the intelligence of all fans with some of the bullsh*t he spews.
At the same time, whenever I encounter any news about Rodgers saying something inflammatory or controversial and I can’t help but not take it seriously or personally. Because yeah, I think it’s pretty self-evident at this point that Rodgers is disingenuous. How much of that is fatigue from stupid questions by beat reporters, though? How much of it stems from being in the limelight for so long, and reaching a headspace where he just wants to f*ck with everyone as a sort of meta commentary on the media?
Hey, if Rodgers wants to do that, that’s his prerogative. He’s a content machine. His antics and ridiculous rhetoric remind me more of a professional wrestler than a football player. There is a sort of entertainment/pro wrestling aspect to professional football. Rodgers is leaning into that, perhaps to a self-aware, exaggerated extent. What’s wrong with that? As long as folks can recognize that and not get caught up in their feelings, who’s the wiser?
Wright is amplifying the profile of his show and his own by calling out Rodgers to such a hilarious degree. In case you don’t want to listen to his whole segment, here’s a transcription of the most salient bits:
“You were disingenuous about the vaccine. That was annoying. Not the status, the way you did it. You were disingenuous about your retirement status. ‘90% retired.’ […] You were disingenuous about how well Verizon works in Southern California. You were then disingenuous about whether or not you wanted Randall Cobb, Allen Lazard, Tim Boyle on your team. Or, if Joe Douglas is quite simply, the worst talent evaluator in NFL history!
You were disingenuous about why Nat Hackett is the offensive coordinator. You’re now disingenuous about your own comeback, which you were disingenuous about the entire time!”
The latest twist in Rodgers’ saga about being “overruled” on his IR activation stems from this here:
If it was anyone else, they might be more vilified. Because Rodgers is so good at throwing a football and has been for so many years, the vast majority of society will give him a pass if he comes back in 2024 and leads the Jets back to prominence. That’s just a fact, subjective as it may seem when articulated. Typically, I guess I’d be outraged by Rodgers’ nonsense, but at this point, I don’t really care. He’s like a cartoon character/modern mythical figure in my mind.
For instance:
If you put any stock into that whatsoever, in my opinion, that’s on you. I feel like that’s not a cop-out. It’s discernment.
Regarding Rodgers being disingenuous — that’s the hardest word to type ad nauseam, by the way — of course the Jets acquired Cobb, Lazard, Boyle and Hackett because of Rodgers’ influence. They’re a desperate organization. They’re catering to every whim and request of a future Hall of Famer — vaccination views, laughably contradictory/hypocritical soliloquies about society/the media, and psychedelic experimentation aside.
Wright’s tirade had me in stitches and was ultra-entertaining, don’t get me wrong. But again, he and everyone else should know who Aaron Rodgers is by now, or at least who he presents himself to be to the general public.
Getting angry at him like this is only going to cause him to triple down and be more outspoken. And thus the cycle repeats, the content machine keeps churning, and everybody wins!
