Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers hasn’t exactly been a fan of technology creeping onto the field. He doesn’t enjoy having cameramen on the field and microphones picking up everything said at the line of scrimmage.
But Rodgers believes the equipment was detrimental in another way as well. He believes it’s responsible for Randall Cobb suffering a punctured lung in the Packers’ playoff loss to the Arizona Cardinals in January.
Rodgers joined his former Packer teammate and current free agent linebacker A.J. Hawk for a nearly two-hour conversation on Hawk’s “The Hawk Cast” podcast and expressed his disdain for the technology creep into the field of play. During the conversation, Rodgers said he believes Cobb’s injury was due to him being mic’d up for the game.
“Randall Cobb had a serious injury last year in a playoff game and I believe, as I think he would as well and the team, that that was caused from him being mic’d up,” Rodgers said. “Because he fell on his mic pack and he had an injury to his insides that kept him out of the game and probably would have kept him out of the rest of the playoffs. The puncture spot, or the injury spot, was directly adjacent to his mic pack.”
Cobb landed hard on his back while attempting to make a one-handed catch late in the first quarter of Green Bay’s playoff loss to the Cardinals. He began coughing up blood on the sidelines and had trouble breathing. He was released from the hospital after an overnight stay and is doing well now.
Whether the mic pack played a part in Cobb’s injury or not, Rodgers still isn’t fond of the technology encroaching on the game.
“Yeah, I think it’s too much information,” Rodgers said. “In 2008 there used to be no headset on defense, so the defense had to signal in every play and that was part of the whole Spygate issue and filming signals and what not. But now you have mics on both guards most of the time and you pick up everything that the quarterback says when we’re at home, and sometimes on the road as well, and I think that’s a competitive edge for the defense and it makes you have to work that much harder with your dummy words and your live and dead words. I mean, that’s part of the game there, but I think that the access is a little bit much.
“I think being mic’d up, when I’m mic’d up, it takes away from the authenticity of the game for me. I don’t feel comfortable mic’d up.”
Hawk then turned the conversation to idea of having point-of-view cameras in quarterbacks’ helmets at some point in the near future.
“Won’t be my helmet I’ll tell you that much,” Rodgers said.
“How are you going to stop them?” Hawk asked.
“I don’t get mic’d up. I’m not going to wear that,” Rodgers replied.
“What if they put them on every guy?” Hawk asked.
“Might have to call it a career,” Rodgers said with a laugh.