If you’re a New York Jets or Green Bay Packers fan—or even a casual observer of the NFL—you’ve now heard that eventual first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers is poised to become the lying face of the league’s junior New York franchise. And as a lifelong Packers fan, I couldn’t be more excited for, well, me.
Rodgers had been wearing on my patience for years before he lied about his vaccination status and found himself hip-deep in woo-woo, debunked conspiracy theories, and sundry rubbish, a la Donald Trump bobbing for McRibs in a Bedminster McDonald’s dumpster. He threw a fit after the Packers drafted his heir apparent, Jordan Love, in 2020, eventually demanding a trade prior to the 2021-22 season. The Packers ultimately found a way to mollify the delicate flower, and Rodgers responded with another MVP season—though he ultimately did what he does best: conspicuously fail to make it back to the Super Bowl.
The New York Jets are among the longest-suffering franchises in sports. Since winning Super Bowl III in an upset for the ages—on the strength of quarterback Broadway Joe Namath’s golden arm and gaudy confidence—they’ve largely been butt-fumbling their way into oblivion. But now they think they see a light at the end of the tunnel. And I couldn’t be happier for them.
Welcome to New York, Off-Broadway Aaron!
RELATED STORY: Yes, Aaron Rodgers, I’m canceling you
Rodgers has a Tom Brady-worthy ego and a Trent Dilfer trophy case; inevitably, the yawning chasm between his diva antics and his real-world results began to wear on many Packers fans, as well as the team itself. Fans and other observers didn’t need to read tea leaves to understand the Packers brass were done with him after last year’s disappointing 8-9 season; we merely had to read between the lines.
They were doing their best Willy Wonka impression—they didn’t really want him back, but until recently, they weren’t really willing to say it.
And now, in perhaps the most satisfying twist in the history of irony, Rodgers is forced to wait on the Packers as they seek to grift the Jets out of the largest possible trade package.
Of course, I generally write about politics, not sports, so it only makes sense that my final break with Rodgers occurred along a political fault line.
As Packers fans, we’ve put up with a lot from our superstar dipshits. The team’s QB prior to Rodgers was dick-pic’ing potato head Brett Favre. While he was nearly as diva-ish as Rodgers, it wasn’t until Favre sashayed out of Green Bay and, before long, into the arms of the rival Minnesota Vikings (this was before the dick pics and well before the—alleged—welfare fraud) that my pique reached a fever pitch. Then, just a couple of years ago—early in the COVID-19 pandemic—he sealed his well-earned reputation for assholery by posing with that guy.
Similarly, Rodgers cemented his reputation for über-dickishness after going full-bore MAGA on the COVID-19 pandemic, blithely dismissing the hard work thousands of dedicated government workers and officials were doing to keep us from, well, dying.
Here’s what I wrote in November 2021 after Rodgers’ sly fibs about being “immunized” were brutally exposed:
Friday on the The Pat McAfee Show, which sounds like the kind of place cowards scurry to when they don’t want to be challenged by people who actually know what they're talking about, Rodgers trotted out loads of mealy MAGA bromides about personal preferences, “woke” mobs, worthless “research,” and oh-so-scary cancel culture to justify his decision to remain unvaccinated—and then lie about it to the media. What did I hear? “I don’t give a shit about anyone, especially the people I came into contact with who didn’t know my true vaccination status.”
[…]
You don’t have the right to drive drunk, to wave a loaded gun around at a concert, or to spread your freedom phlegm to unwitting reporters who are just doing their jobs. You also have no right to lie to the people you’re endangering with your daft decisions. If you want to live dangerously, go skydiving, climb Mt. Everest, or bet on the Packers to win the NFC Championship. I prefer to stay alive and solvent, and that’s my choice.
But despite Rodgers’ dangerous flouting of common-sense public health measures—and his equally dangerous lies—I still rooted for the team to win.
And then on the eve of the Packers’ first playoff game following the 2021 season, Rodgers said this about President Joe Biden: “When the president of the United States says, ‘This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,’ it’s because him and his constituents, which—I don’t know how there are any if you watch any of his attempts at public speaking—but I guess he got 81 million votes. But when you say stuff like that, and then you have the CDC, which—how do you even trust them—but then they come out and talk about 75% of the COVID deaths have at least four comorbidities. And you still have this fake White House set saying that this is the pandemic of the unvaccinated. That’s not helping the conversation.”
Rodgers’ nonsense about the COVID vaccine was quickly debunked, but it was his apparent deference to the morally bankrupt Big Lie movement that really got under my skin. And while I still wanted the Packers to win their playoff game, I laughed uproariously as Rodgers moped his way off the field after yet another “shocking” playoff exit.
By the way, the reason Rodgers—whose skin, like Trump’s, is about a micron thick—went after Biden is that the president gently ribbed some random Kentucky Packers fans over Rodgers’ vaccination status: “God love you, and tell that quarterback he’s got to get the vaccine,” Biden said. Nasty, huh? You can see why Rodgers countered with a baseless suggestion that he wasn’t actually president.
Meanwhile, Rodgers remains fully onboard the woo-woo train—though he doesn’t seem to grasp the irony in his working for the heir to a giant pharmaceutical empire when he moves to the Jets.
And if you take a look at Rodgers’ recent Twitter likes, it’s crystal clear that he’s still no big fan of Western medicine.
The screenshot tweet that Rodgers liked reads “Covid vaccine is so safe and effective that you have to be threatened to take it. Covid is so deadly that you have to be tested to know you have it.”
He’s also not a fan of consensus reality.
So good luck, Aaron. I’m sure the New York media will be unfailingly supportive of your unsupported conspiracy theories and perpetual finger-pointing. I’m also sure it will be a relief to get away from the searing klieg lights of the Green Bay, Wisconsin, media and settle into that warm, inviting, endlessly loving and forgiving glow of Jets Nation.
Also, don’t be a stranger.
Wait, sorry. Typo.
Don’t be stranger—though I fear that ship has already sailed on to the COVID-beleaguered boroughs of New York.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link. Or, if you prefer a test drive, you can download the epilogue to Goodbye, Asshat for the low, low price of FREE.