It really is a “full circle” year for Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
At a time when Rodgers was seemingly creating a kinder, gentler vibe as he embarks on his final year in the NFL, Rodgers brought the knives out during a Monday appearance on ESPN’s The Pat McAfee Show.
Rodgers started by taking the Fifth Amendment in response to McAfee’s first question. Rodgers then went off on Dr. Anthony Fauci, who last week repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment in testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
“You got a pardon, and you’re in front of — and you pleaded [the Fifth] over 100 times?” Rodgers said. “What are you scared of, Tony? I thought you were the science. I thought you [were], ‘I am science.’ And you get up there and you can’t answer a question?”
The vitriol extended to ESPN, the owner of the channel on which he was appearing.
“How much time did the network spend on that?” Rodgers said. “How much time do they spend on my responses every week? On my vaccination status, on Taylor [Swift] and Travis [Kelce’s] wedding? Did they do even a minute? Did they do even a minute on Tony Fauci? No, I bet they didn’t.”
Rodgers then made reference to ESPN’s conspicuously scant coverage of the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini situation.
“Then there was another scandal this offseason, too, involving a voter for MVP, for coach of the year,” Rodgers said. “How much time did your network spend on that?”
Later in the segment (after it migrated from ESPN to YouTube only), Rodgers returned to the Russini story.
“Like, you have literally an individual that maybe used to work at ESPN that covers our league at the highest level, and there’s a major scandal, and it’s just, like, nobody can fucking talk about it,” Rodgers said. “What are we even doing here? . . . [I]f it’s affecting certain things, if there’s leaks going on, if there’s tampering going on, if that person is also an MVP voter and a coach of the year voter.”
Rodgers also referred to ESPN as a “gutless organization” with “no integrity.”
As to Fauci, Rodgers eventually called him “an absolute criminal” while repeatedly labeling him an “absolute coward.” (Rodgers at one point suggested that Fauci’s wife is Ghislaine Maxwell’s sister, before adding “allegedly.”)
Here’s the part where I say some things about what Rodgers said.
First, Rodgers is right about ESPN looking the other way on the Russini-Vrabel story. It’s still not clear why that happened. Given that the relationship (whatever it was) between Russini and Vrabel apparently existed during Russini’s time with ESPN, and to the extent it tainted her work (e.g., the 2021 reporting prior to the Julio Jones trade), ESPN prefers not to peer down that rabbit hole. What did the producers know about the situation, and did they perhaps welcome the benefits it generated for Bristol? Those questions haven’t been asked by ESPN, and surely won’t be.
Second, as to Fauci’s decision to repeatedly invoke the Fifth Amendment, Rodgers doesn’t seem to realize that Fauci’s pardon wouldn’t apply to any effort to paint anything he said last week as perjury. Considering some of the specious (to say the least) prosecutions that have been attempted by the current administration, anything Fauci said could have been called perjury. Even if it wasn’t.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something — anything — that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words — quote — ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said in his opening remarks to the committee run by Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Third, Rodgers did not mention the one specific thing that caused him to attract the ire of many in 2021. In August of that year, Rodgers publicly lied about being vaccinated. Well, he didn’t lie per se. He played a deliberate word game about being “immunized,” forcing someone to ask a followup question about whether “immunized” means “vaccinated.” (The followup question wasn’t asked.)
Rodgers had every right to not be vaccinated. He wanted to avoid the protocols the league developed (right or wrong) for unvaccinated players, including wearing a mask during press conferences. (Rodgers didn’t wear one during the press conference when he claimed he was “immunized.”) If he hadn’t tested positive in November 2021, the hair-splitting never would have come to light.
It’s kind of amazing that folks are relitigating the fog-of-war niceties of a pandemic that killed more than a million Americans, and which prompted people to say and do all sorts of things (including a suggestion by a fairly influential person to inject bleach) in an effort to get it under control. The issue has been dusted off for one reason: To motivate voters who may be inclined to stay home for the upcoming midterm election, due to growing apathy and/or flat-out antipathy regarding the person who mused about bleach as a potential treatment for the virus.
Bottom line? Rodgers’s decision to take the high road as to his family is hardly an indication that he has fully committed to that path. On Monday, Rodgers took an extended jog on the low road — to the likely dismay of the executives at ESPN who had to hold their breath and count the seconds until it all finally ended.
