Because I was born in Wisconsin, I’m a Green Bay Packers fan (yes, it’s usually that simple). So I’ve followed the team for a long time, and because I have, I can tell you that Aaron Rodgers has always been kind of a baby.
I root for the guy to play well because he quarterbacks my favorite team, but there’s a certain amount of cognitive dissonance involved in doing so. I dislike him intensely, think he’s a liar and a punk—but man, can he throw that ball on a dime. And the Packers might go to the Super Bowl! It’s kind of like if Dr. Hannibal Lecter were doing your Lasik surgery. You want him to perform well, but there’s roughly an equal chance he’ll pop your eye in his mouth like a Ghirardelli cherry cordial as restore your vision. (In case you’re not a pro football fan, the Packers regularly make the NFC Championship Game but have made the Super Bowl just once since Rodgers became the team’s starting quarterback.)
Well, Rodgers—whose whiny sense of entitlement has been positively Trumpian lately—is at it again. During a Wednesday press conference, Rodgers was asked about comments made by Chicago sportswriter Hub Arkush, who said Rodgers should be excluded from MVP consideration because of his ample off-field fucknuttery. Arkush is one of 50 sportswriters who vote on the annual NFL MVP award. Watch:
REPORTER: “After what you said last week about what it would mean to win your fourth MVP, what do you think of one of the 50 voters coming out and saying yesterday, quote, ‘I don’t think you can be the biggest jerk in the league and punish your team and your organization and your fan base the way he did and be the MVP. I think he’s a bad guy, and I don’t think a bad guy can be the MVP at the same time’?”
RODGERS: “I think he’s a bum. I think he’s an absolute bum. He doesn’t know me. I don’t know who he is, no one knew who he was, probably, until yesterday’s comments, but … And I listened to the comments, but to say he had his mind made up in the summertime, in the offseason that I had zero chance of winning the MVP, in my opinion should exclude future votes. You know, his problem isn’t me being a bad guy or the biggest jerk in the league—he doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me. I’ve never met him, I’ve never had lunch with him, I’ve never had an interview with him. His problem is I’m not vaccinated. So if he wants to go on a crusade and collude and come up with an extra letter to put on the award just for this season and make it the Most Valuable Vaccinated Player, then he should do that. But he’s a bum and I’m not going to waste any time worrying about that stuff. He has no idea who I am and he never talked to me in his life. But it’s unfortunate that those sentiments … it’s surprising that he would even say that, to be honest. But I knew that was possible. I talked about it on [The Pat] McAfee [Show] a few weeks ago.”
A few observations:
1) The guy who said he won’t waste any time “worrying” about that stuff just spent a minute and a half talking about it. Trust me, he cares. A lot. The guy still can’t get over going 24th overall in the 2005 draft instead of No. 1. Don’t believe me? Look:
For the record, the Niners didn’t draft him. They drafted Alex Smith No. 1 overall. This is Rodgers’ sad attempt at cheeky sarcasm. The guy simply can’t let things go. You probably heard that Rodgers had a big standoff with the Packers’ front office during the offseason. Was it because they didn’t respect him? Or pay him enough? Nah. There were a lot of reasons, apparently, but two of the big ones were that the Packers drafted another quarterback in the first round of the NFL draft to serve as his understudy and cut one of his favorite players, wide receiver Jake Kumerow, who went on to do basically nothing with the Buffalo Bills. So he seemed to want to have input on personnel decisions but is clearly clueless about what’s best for his team.
2) “I don’t know him, he doesn’t know anything about me” is the kind of thing teen guests scream at audience members on Maury.
3) Rodgers still doesn’t get it. People don’t think he’s a bad guy because he’s unvaccinated (though I personally do think that). They’re mad at him because he misled other people into thinking he was vaxxed when he said, with clear intent to deceive, that he was “immunized.” He’d actually taken some sort of woo-woo homeopathic remedy and thought the NFL should count that as full vaccination. Then he got COVID-19 and proceeded to whine some more. Because whining is his favorite.
4) “I think he’s a bum. I think he’s an absolute bum. He doesn’t know me. I don’t know who he is,” says the guy who thinks it’s brutally unfair to harshly judge people you aren’t personally acquainted with.
Aaron Rodgers is an extraordinary quarterback, but Arkush is absolutely right about one thing: He’s a piss-poor human being. He endangered others with his carelessness and hurt his team with his hubris. (Because he was unvaccinated he missed a start, and the Packers lost that week.)
No need to add a letter to the MVP this year, though: “Most Vapid Prick” fits him to a T.
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