Aaron Rodgers: Emerging from the dark to sport's brightest city
Aaron Rodgers: Emerging from the dark to sport's brightest city
The superstar quarterback leads a hypocritical line out of Green Bay to the New York Jets.
Ever since his surprise drafting by the Green Bay Packers back in 2005, Aaron Rodgers has demanded attention. The scenes of him sitting glumly while Alex Smith was sent first overall to the San Francisco 49ers, as pick after pick left the California prospect on the shelf, it was a chip-being-placed-on-shoulder in real time, before our eyes, on a player we would soon learn thrives off having enormously imbalanced shoulders.
Fast forward 15 years, and Rodgers’ career in Green Bay seemed to be bookended with another controversial pick, when the team selected Jordan Love in the first round of the 2020 draft. It was a huge shock and although it triggered little initial threat to Rodgers’ future, it was the first shot across the bow from the team to a player they were growlingly getting itchy feet about.
Annoyingly for the Packers, Rodgers continued to be really very good and led his team to consecutive 13-win seasons, picking up consecutive MVP trophies along the way, seemingly in spite of an organisation that were reluctant to aid their superstar with an attacking arsenal to help get them over the line. Rodgers has often been accompanied with a revolving door of miscasts and receivers of little fanfare, who were they not catching passes from Aaron Rodgers would have created little ripple in the big pond of the NFL.
The team even moved on from Davante Adams, inarguably Rodgers’ best ever receiver. They didn’t replace him.
That’s the playing side of affairs, but each season has been preceded with a will-he-won’t-they tango between Rodgers and the Packers. Rodgers has grown increasingly skeptical with things in life, not least the agenda of the team he has spent his entire career at.
In 2017, the Packers moved on from long-term general manager Ted Thompson, a figure in the hierarchy who had total control of football affairs and one Rodgers respected. The restructuring by CEO Mark Murphy has signaled the slippery slope of relations between them and their quarterback ever since.
Likewise, the Packers seemed more and more adverse to issuing power and control to such a spiky character. Rodgers, at his core, is soft-spoken and likes to give off the impression that he shuns the limelight. He is very skeptical of mainstream media, the NFL insiders that pedal theirs and team agendas, and has bypassed into more varied channels of communication. He is the only active quarterback to ever appear on Joe Rogan’s podcast, in a capacity where they spoke at length about his decision to not get vaccinated for COVID-19.
This was on the back of the controversy where Rodgers misled the public on his vaccination status, saying he had been “immunized” in an effort to lead the witch hunt astray. This all unfurled when Rodgers finally did contract the virus and had to enter the unvaccinated lane for NFL players who were COVID positive.
He has been Pat McAfee’s prized pig, as near 500,000 people tuned in live on YouTube to watch Rodgers burn his was out of Green Bay and lay the truth on all the perceived misinformation from his side, be it about the Packers, Adam Schefter or the “woke mob” and “cancel culture” that are looking to close his coffin.
Although Rodgers and Green Bay have somehow managed to grin and bear an increasingly stinky relationship, it has all come to a head this off-season. Rodgers entered the dark—literally—and emerged to see the light—that is, he was still unsure of his playing future until the Packers answered the question for him and sent feelers out that they were seeking to trade him.
The chip that emerged back in 2005 was still there, lying dormant for it’s next big slight. Considering retirement, Rodgers now looks likely to stay active and play for the New York Jets and prove it to the Packers and everyone that they have made a huge mistake.
Although we are far from a resolution, as the trade negotiations are firmly in Green Bay’s court with months of time to bat back to the Jets, this has signaled the perhaps overdue divorce between a pair that have grown weary of each other.
Green Bay can move onto their big bet from 2020 in Jordan Love, while Rodgers can escape the stifling environment that has suffocated his playing potential and were adverse to ladening him with all of his demands, all the while dealing with his off conspiracies and controversies.
Now, he can go in search of the peace and quiet he desires in… New York. And now he can play under the stewardship of an heir to one of his greatest recent opponents… Johnson & Johnson pharmaceuticals. True principle hold little virtue when it comes to shoving it to your old employers and earning another massive pay cheque, when retirement was looming.
Rodgers has always had all the attention, whether he likes it or not, and now he can emerge from the darkness to sledge mainstream media and lay down the woke up under the blinding spotlight of sport’s brightest city.