It is only the middle of March, which means six months until the start of the NFL season. But Aaron Rodgers is never out of season. Sometimes it is because he is talking again, and talking, and talking, just because he never seems to tear a vocal chord. Sometimes it is because people are talking about him, the way CNN did this week when one of its reporters said Rodgers had once voiced conspiracy theories to her about the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary.
Sometimes it is even because Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who can conspiracy-theory with the best of them, is considering Rodgers as a vice-presidential candidate, as part of a presidential campaign from Kennedy that is mostly made of butterflies.
And you know where Rodgers was when Kennedy was floating this theory about Rodgers running with him? Our guy Aaron was in Costa Rica, allegedly on a retreat involving a psychedelic drug known as ayahuasca.
Here’s what Rodgers’ buddy Pat McAfee had to say about that, after seeing a photograph of Rodgers luxuriating on that Costa Rican getaway:
“That is a much nicer setup than I was expecting whenever I heard these stories of the ayahuasca usage down in Costa Rica, because they’re talking about being in a teepee and all this stuff.”
By the way? If Rodgers is using ayahuasca on his ongoing path of enlightenment, you have to think hardly anybody is saying, “I’ll have what Aaron is having.”
He is, oh no, never out of season, even when he doesn’t have a season, we found that out when he got into a very public beef with Jimmy Kimmel. You remember that one. Almost everybody does. It was the result of what Rodgers would later say was a misunderstanding over the potential release of a list naming friends of Jeffrey Epstein, Rodgers having said “a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, [that] are really hoping that doesn’t come out.”
In the moment, Rodgers said he just meant that Kimmel had once made fun of him for saying a list like that even existed, not that Kimmel was some kind of pedophile. It took him a week to clear that up, but Rodgers apparently learned a valuable lesson from that controversy, because it didn’t take him nearly as long to respond to the CNN allegation about remarks the CNN reporter said Rodgers made at a Kentucky Derby party back in 2013.
This is the statement Rodgers gave us on X:
“As I’m on the record saying in the past, what happened in Sandy Hook was an absolute tragedy. I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place. Again, I hope that we learn from this and other tragedies to identify the signs that will allow us to prevent unnecessary loss of life. My thoughts and prayers continue to remain with the families affected along with the entire Sandy Hook community.”
It wasn’t a non-denial denial. But it wasn’t exactly full-throated, either. All Rodgers needed to say, in this word salad, is what he said in the second sentence, that he never believed that one of the worst tragedies this country has known was somehow staged, and that even over a decade ago, he wasn’t living in Alex Jonestown.
But you know why people even considered that Rodgers might think that way, after all the cockeyed theories we’ve heard from him about COVID vaccines and Dr. Anthony Fauci and how “Big Pharma” is out to get him? Because there really isn’t any quote that you might see attributed to Rodgers these days that would make you say, “Wow, the guy would never say something like that,” even if it was about UFO’s or the earth being flat or rigged elections.
Irony might not be dead, but it certainly seems to be taking a good long rest in the case of Aaron Rodgers, one of the great quarterbacks of all time, and one who still believes he can come back from his Achilles injury and lead the Jets back to pro football’s promised land. Hey, it’s become pretty clear that he doesn’t appreciate the irony of attacking Big Pharma as routinely as he does but is getting paid by Woody Johnson, heir to a legendary pharmaceutical company known as Johnson & Johnson.
Travis Kelce went right after Rodgers on that when Rodgers went on McAfee’s show (it’s the place where, when Aaron goes there, Pat has to take him in) and mocked him as “Mr. Pfizer” for doing television commercials endorsing the use of vaccines.
“Who knew I’d get into a vax war with Aaron Rodgers, man. Mr. Pfizer versus the Johnson & Johnson family over there,” Kelce said.
Here is what Rodgers said about THAT on McAfee’s ESPN show:
“Whether they’re sponsored by Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson, whatever it might be, when you go up against some of those powers that be, put yourself in the crosshairs, they’re gonna paint you a certain way. And that’s what the media did to me a couple of years ago. That’s fine. That’s their prerogative. That’s what they wanted to do.”
Few pointed out to No. 8 of the Jets at the time that one of those being sponsored, as an employee of Johnson’s football team, is him.
Maybe this would all have been different if Rodgers hadn’t been injured on the first Monday night of the season, and the main event for him had been games on Sundays and Mondays and not his Tuesday visit to McAfee’s show, when he would once again be talking and talking and talking everything under the sun all over again. Rodgers isn’t the first star athlete to act as if the world is hanging on his every word. He’s just the one to whom the Jets have turned over their franchise, lock, stock, and green barrel.
They don’t know how he is going to come back from his injury, and what kind of football he will be playing next December when he turns 41. Rodgers doesn’t know, either. Especially not Rodgers, who convinced himself and an awful lot of football fans that he was going to come back from his September injury and be back playing games in December.
Maybe none of the things Rodgers has said, and none of the controversies with which he’s been involved — whether he started the fires or not — will matter at all to Johnson and the Jets general manager Joe Douglas, who made the trade for Rodgers, and Coach Robert Saleh, if Rodgers can still play at a high level and the Jets are able to once again manage a winning record. Maybe they had no idea that Rodgers would be more of a reality series than “Real Housewives.”
They’ve found out, though, the hard way. This week’s Rodgers stories were about vaccine wingnut RFK Jr., and Sandy Hook. Right now, nobody knows what the next one will be. Just that there will be one. Not a conspiracy theory. Just a fact of life with the Real Quarterback of Florham Park.
March 13, 2024: The passing mate!
New York Daily News Back page for March 13, 2024: Jets might have some competition for Rodgers’ services as RFK Jr. puts QB on his short list for Veep. Aaron Rodgers, who said he’d like to play up to four more years in the NFL, might get another offer, one in which he wouldn’t have to worry about his Achilles.
STILL PLENTY TO WORRY ABOUT WITH COLE, THE SPRING OF BORAS CONTINUES & SIMON REMAINS A GIANT OF OUR CITY …
Maybe the next time the Knicks lose a couple of games in a row, Coach Pitino can tell them they stink.
Everybody is glad that Gerrit Cole doesn’t need Tommy John surgery.
Everybody is happy that Cole isn’t going to be lost for the season because of his elbow issues, as the latest diagnosis from Dr. Neal ElAttrache indicates.
But everybody ought to pump the brakes on spiking the ball, even if it’s a baseball.
It’s fine to wish and hope he’ll be back in a couple of months, because this is a time of magical thinking for Yankee fans now that surgery has been taken off the table.
But how many times have we been told that rest and non-surgical treatment was going to get the job done with a pitcher?
It continues to astound me how out of touch the PGA Tour is with where it actually fits in sports’ ecosystem.
Listen, I love golf.
I have my whole life and still love playing it.
But the people in charge of the Tour — and they know who they are — and the players themselves continue to act like they’re the NFL.
They’re not.
If it doesn’t work out with Rodgers, who’s the next running-mate call for RFK Jr. — Elvis?
Only the great Larry David could get Lori Loughlin to come on “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and make fun of herself the way she did last Sunday night.
This is Tom Thibodeau’s best coaching job with the Knicks.
If you read the sports section — and you know me, I try to keep up — you still get the idea that the world is going to stop spinning on its axis any day now if Scottie Boras doesn’t find work soon for his unsigned clients.
But this much is guaranteed:
When guys like Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery do end up with new teams, whatever those teams are and whatever the contract terms are, Boras will act as if it was all part of his master plan.
And if they don’t get jobs soon, the rest of us will start to think it’s our fault.
It will be interesting to see if the Orioles, with a boatload of young talent, will be able to do it again.
If you saw Paul Simon on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert this week, how could you not download his latest work, “Seven Psalms,” as soon as the show was over?
First he gave a master class on his creative process, then he picked up a guitar and sang, and it all made for a pretty wonderful hour of television.
Paul Simon, at 82, remains a giant of his craft, and of our city.
Just one more time, I want to see him give a big, big-city concert.
Maybe in Central Park.
Wouldn’t that be a night?
