I’ve been working my way through Jeff Pearlman’s excellent Brett Favre bio, hoping to experience it one page at a time without picking up any of the entertaining nuggets lurking in the latter pages. But I couldn’t avoid learning about one specific anecdote regarding the first time Favre met Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay’s first-round pick in 2005.
According to the book, Rodgers said this to Favre the first time they ever met: “Good morning, Grandpa.”
On Wednesday, Rodgers denied the claim.
“I’ll just say this: The first time I met Brett was on the practice field, and I could barely get a sentence out of, ‘Hello, my name is Aaron,’” Rodgers said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “Did I call him ‘Grandpa’ at any time during the three years together? Probably. But it’s in the same joking way that my man Brett Hundley called me ‘Grandpa’ three weeks ago on the field when we were doing a competitive drill.
“The story that was out there that I saw is completely 100 percent false, and I would dare anybody to test my memory on that. You guys know how my memory works. The end.”
It’s hardly the end, given some of the other stories told in Pearlman’s book. For example, Pearlman writes that, as a rookie, Rodgers bragged that he got a 35 on the Wonderlic test.
“Brett, what did you get?” Rodgers eventually asked Favre during a quarterbacks meeting.
“I have no idea,” Favre said.
“I do,” Rodgers replied. “I looked it up. You got a 22.”
After Rodgers left the room, Favre said to position coach Darrell Bevell and quarterback Craig Nall, “F--king Wonderlic score. Do you believe that sh-t? I run circles around his ass.”
At one point, receiver Donald Driver pulled Rodgers aside and said, “Aaron, we get it. You’re smart. Now shut the f--k up.”
We’ll see whether he does in response to the other contentions contained in the book.