The next time Aaron Rodgers has a press conference, it could get interesting
When Aaron Rodgers met the supposedly merciless New York media for the first time as a member of the Jets, he saw more softballs than Fireman Ed's family picnic.
This year, whenever Rodgers meets with reporters for the first time in 2024 campaign, it could get interesting.
The last time he spoke to New York reporters, he explained the importance of having no distractions in 2024. That nothing about other than winning should be part of the building.
Then came the sudden, silly, and short-lived connection to the presidential ticket of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Rodgers was never running, but he allowed the story to both give Kennedy's snowball's chance campaign a boost — and to make Rodgers's eventual, inevitable pivot to politics less jarring when it happens.
Along the way, his propensity to embrace conspiracy theories became more obvious, with CNN reporting that he has questioned whether the Sandy Hook shootings were a government job and Rodgers himself suggesting that HIV was a government-created pandemic.
The New York Times recently took a deep dive into his tinfoil-hat habits. Whether that causes those who will question Rodgers during press conferences to shed the kid gloves remains to be seen.
Maybe they will. The honeymoon is over. Rodgers, who loves to play the victim, has been insulated from direct scrutiny, so far.
He usually speaks only in safe spaces. What will happen when reporters covering the Jets get their next chance to talk to him? League rules require it during Phase Three of the offseason program.
Will he be pressed on his apparent belief that everything is a conspiracy? Will he be asked whether he thinks Sandy Hook was an inside job? Whether he thinks 9/11 was an inside job? Whether he thinks Joe Biden isn't really Joe Biden? Why he thinks it's a "weird coincidence" that John F. Kennedy Jr. died in a plane crash when he was running for the Senate against Hillary Clinton, even if Kennedy apparently wasn't running?
Will Rodgers face aggressive questions if/when he spews more nonsense? Because so much of it is nonsense. And it's potentially dangerous nonsense.
While some things that happen might not be what they seem, it's impossible for EVERYTHING to be part of some grand plan to hide some sinister truth from an unsuspecting public. Having Rodgers pushing that crap on major platforms without any pushback feeds the delusions of vulnerable people.
Rodgers has every right to think whatever he wants to think. He doesn't have a right to spew it without anyone ever questioning him, if he's going to work in an industry that requires periodic exposure to the media. The next time he's exposed to the media, hopefully someone from the media will try to expose with a little more clarity some of the outlandish things Rodgers apparently believes.
