When the Jets traded for Aaron Rodgers in 2023, the supposedly rough-and-tumble New York media treated him with kid gloves. Last month, reporters continued to be surprisingly deferential to Rodgers, after an offseason in which he spewed more reckless conspiracy theories and pondered quitting on the Jets to become a politician.
The local-media love affair with Aaron could be over, now that he failed to show up for mandatory minicamp, for reasons that are still sufficiently vague to create the impression that they’re insufficient.
The New York Post devotes the back cover to Rodgers, with this headline: “Full of Hot Aar.” The cover also points out his hypocritical quote from January 8, when he said that “the bullshit that has nothing to do with winning needs to get out of the building.” The New York Daily news went with an image of an empty Rodgers uniform, with this headline: “Call Him Aaron Dodgers.” (The Post wins this round.)
We’ll see what it means when Rodgers shows up for training camp (unless he has something better to do) and talks to reporters. Will he get perfunctory questions that he can answer however he wants with no follow up?
Will he say where he was, when he didn’t show up for minicamp?
Will he attack his critics as being bought and paid for by Big Pharma, as he often does?
In Rodgers’s mind, there is never legitimate scrutiny of his words or actions. Anyone who would dare to call him out is corrupt and/or evil.
Yep, he’ll be a great politician. And by “great” I mean “just another member of the toxically dysfunctional ruling class that spends way too much time on shit that doesn’t matter and not nearly enough time working for the well-being of their constituents.”
