The Curious Case of Aaron Rodgers

The Curious Case of Aaron Rodgers is a special audio feature from Nora Princiotti on The Ringer NFL Show, exploring the last few years of the star quarterbacks life, as Rodgerss legacy as one of the best passers in the NFL has become complicated by his public embrace of conspiracy theory culture.

Hes now 40, in the final stages of his Hall of Fame career, on a team that has placed all of its Super Bowl aspirations on his shoulders.

But because of his outspokenness on various controversial issues, notably vaccines, and his close relationship with former presidential candidate Robert F.

Kennedy Jr., Rodgers could be dragging the NFL back into the culture wars during an election yearand once again revealing the ever-blurring line between athlete and public intellectual.

The following excerpt has been lightly edited for clarity.

Just a couple of years ago, Aaron Rodgers almost hosted Jeopardy! .

Now hes spouting conspiracy theories.

Its a strange circumstance for the NFL and its fans, to try to square the Jets star savior quarterback with the anti-establishment ideologue.

After all, the NFL itself is a major American institution, one whose culture thrives on hierarchy and obedience, the very things Rodgers seems more and more bent on rejecting.

And now, in the eleventh hour of his career, Rodgerss legacy seems to hang in the balance of those competing values.

This is the main story of our times.

This is the individual versus the institution, said Jon Ronson, a British documentarian who has spent decades studying conspiracy theory culture, who I interviewed for this podcast.

As a team, the Jets have tied their Super Bowl hopes to Rodgersand to their ability to give him what he wants.

Which, perhaps above all else, is to be his own man.

The Jets have given Rodgers input on decisions about coaching hires and personnel moves.

Its a level of influence thats rare, even for a star player.

Rodgers missed the teams minicamp this spring because of a pre-planned trip to Egypt.

It caused a mini-controversy after head coach Robert Saleh described the absences as quote-unquote unexcused, but that has since blown over.

Its a delicate balance, not because football teams arent used to having players with all sorts of belief systems, or because they dont know how to handle some bad press.

But most teams want their quarterbacks to model the behaviors they expect from everyone else.

In a word: to lead .

And handling Rodgers is a challenge, because the kind of falling into place the NFL typically rewards is exactly the thing he wont do.

As far as the Jets seem concerned, if Rodgers wants to spend his off days this fall talking with podcasters and pundits, so be it.

Their approach over the past few months has been to turn the other cheek and stick to football, even if he wont.

Its an unprecedented situation not only because Rodgers is not your typical quarterback, but also because of the media ecosystem that gives him a platform, as Bryan Curtis, who covers media for The Ringer , explains I think if you and I went back ...

through football history, we could find a lot of quarterbacks, or a lot of players at least, that had political views that werent that different than Aaron Rodgers, or were just lets say outside the bounds of mainstream thinking in the same way that Aaron Rodgerss opinions sometimes are, Curtis said.

I dont think we would find any that either were willing to share them like he is, or had the platforms to share them like he does.

I think thats part of really what makes him unique.

Hes coming up in this age where he can not only hop on The Pat McAfee Show , but he can hop on any podcast and just go for an hour.

...

Roger Staubach couldnt have done that, Joe Montana couldnt have done that, even if they had wanted to.

I asked Curtis to explain what he meant when he said couldnt have done that.

Was it because those views would have been considered too controversial 30 years ago, or because the media environment was less polarized than it is today? They wouldve been worried about what it wouldve done to their image or what it wouldve done to their locker rooms in a different way than Aaron Rodgers.

But also where would they have done it? What hour of television in 1985 wouldve afforded them a forum to talk about politics, and vaccines, and other things? There just wasnt a comparable platform for them, Curtis said.

To me, all of this gets to the heart of why Rodgers is a hard figure to make sense of.

How are we supposed to think of him? He is a citizen, with a right to his own opinions.

Sure.

But, he also has a major platform as a star athlete, which comes with certain expectations of using it wisely.

And hes also become a main character in a moment when sports and politics are mixing in a strange way.

Our politics have become more and more welcoming to cultural figures who dont have the usual credentialsand who dont go through much real vetting.

Theres genuine power to that.

I mean, Aaron Rodgers was nearly a candidate for vice president! Context matters.

The closer hes gotten to real politics, the more sharply his views have been analyzed.

The CNN report claiming Rodgers had denied the Sandy Hook shooting, for instance, came just after Robert F.

Kennedy Jr.

revealed that Rodgers was on his VP short list.

One of the reporters on that CNN story, Pamela Brown, said she had heard Rodgers make those claims herself in 2013.

When Rodgers was just a quarterback, it wasnt relevant news.

Once it seemed like there was a chance hed wind up on a presidential ticket, though, it was.

Theres definitely some logic to that.

Elected officials have influence that NFL quarterbacks dont.

But the muddier the line gets between athlete and public intellect, the harder that logic is to measure out.

Does every one of Aaron Rodgerss utterances this season need to be fact-checked like a statement from a candidate? If he voices a conspiracy theory from an NFL podium, who is expected to respond? The Jets? The league? Anyone? Like these are all things that no one really needed to work out, at least on a daily basis, 20 years ago.

And so in a way, he justhe happens to be the guy that we get to work all these things out about, Curtis said.

I have a feeling a lot of us will have the opportunity to keep working through those things as this season continues.

That said, as Rodgers approaches whats probably his last best chance to finish an NFL season as a Super Bowl champ, I also bet hes enough of a media buff to know this: If he and the Jets can make a real go of winning the Super Bowl this season, that story may at least temporarily drown out any others.

I think winning games changes a lot of peoples minds.

Winning games is a way to make people think of you as a football player full-stop, and to have temporary amnesia about the rest of you, Curtis said.

I think if Aaron Rodgers goes out and wins 12 games for the Jets, or God forbid, a Jets Super Bowl, I think therell be a lot of people that start thinking about him more as a quarterback than as a public intellectual.

I just think thats how it happens, Curtis said Conventional wisdom in the football world says to shun distractions.

But to Rodgers, they arent distractions at all.

He is still trying to win the argument.

Or maybe hes still trying to win all the arguments.

Vaccines.

Censorship.

How long it takes to recover from an Achilles injury.

Basically anyone ever whos told him what to do, or doubted what he could do.

What sets him apart from other controversial athletes is the zeal he seems to have for being part of the controversy.

Its not a sideshow.

Its his identity.

To hear the full episode of The Curious Case of Aaron Rodgers on The Ringer NFL Show , click HERE .

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