Late last week, Kalyn Kahler of TheAthletic.com published a report that delves deeply into the dynamics surrounding Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and his new-look receiving corps.
Aaron didn’t like it.
“It is by far the dumbest nothing-burger article that I’ve read in the entire season,” Rodgers said Tuesday during his weekly appearance with Pat McAfee and former Packers teammate A.J. Hawk. “This was the dumbest article of the year, by far.”
Rodgers didn’t specifically say what was dumb about the article. McAfee tried to characterize the issues with the piece.
“It alleged, from anonymous sources I believe, that you will use signals from . . . like two, three years ago and none of the wide receivers know what it means, the young guys specifically don’t know what it means, and then they get like accosted for not knowing what it means, when you never taught them that,” McAfee said. “Is every word in that article bullshit?”
“Ninety-five percent of that article is absolute, complete horseshit, and the other five percent is exaggerated nothingness,” Rodgers said. “That fact that this is made to be, like I said, is the most ridiculous, nothing story that I’ve read the entire year, and that’s saying a lot. . . . Oh, we have signals for our offense that we expect you guys to know? And then there was something that it’s not written or it’s not like stored anywhere, there’s not a file? I don’t know what that is.”
Frankly, I don’t think Rodgers or McAfee even read the article. There isn’t a single anonymous source used. Kahler meticulously harvested and presented on-the-record quotes from current and former teammates regarding the hand-signal meetings specifically and, more broadly, the challenges that young receivers face when trying to get in the good graces of Aaron Rodgers.
For example, veteran receiver Sammy Watkins (who was cut by the Packers on Monday, perhaps coincidentally or perhaps not), said the Packers have “two offenses in one.” One consists of the official scheme and the other contains the specific details Rodgers conveys, “whether it is angle, yardage, eye, head, or tempo.”
“If you’re not up to date 100 percent of the time, you pretty much can’t go out there and make plays,” Watkins told Kahler. “You can’t really play fast, and I think that’s what the young guys kind of are — not afraid of — but if you’re just trying to do the right thing, you are not focusing on getting open, you are not focusing on releases.”
Also, rookie Romeo Doubs was asked after his return from an ankle injury whether he had earned Rodgers’s trust.
“I don’t know,” Doubs said. “I know with this being my first year here, playing for a Hall of Fame quarterback obviously has been the biggest learning curve for me. And it’s not just for myself, it’s for Christian [Watson], for Samori [Toure], so it’s been a really tough transition.”
Packers quarterback Jordan Love provided direct evidence that young receivers don’t relish the hand-signal sessions.
“That’s definitely something wide receivers don’t look forward to, is the signal meeting, because we have so many,” Love told Kahler. “You don’t want any of that stuff getting out, so we wait until the season starts to start going through signals.”
Love also supplied the quote that illustrates the mystery surrounding the hand signals.
“Aaron will bring signals back from five or six years ago that he used to have in an older offense,” Love told Kahler. “He’ll just signal it out there and you just kind of got to know, and if you don’t know, you just have to figure it out. It’s hard for the young guys.”
As to Rodgers’s complaint regarding the claim that the signals aren’t in a file or otherwise stored, again, that came directly from his current understudy.
“It’s just in our brains,” Love told Kahler regarding the hand signals.
Frankly, I don’t know what’s in Rodgers’s brain. (I’m not sure I want to.) But either he didn’t truly read the article or he’s affirmatively lying about its content in order to make himself look less of a bully and/or tyrant and/or someone who has significant intelligence but not nearly enough emotional intelligence.
Good relationships are critical to the success of any organization. Rodgers failed to quickly establish good relationships with his young receivers. And it has hurt the team’s prospects in 2022. Kahler’s article makes that reality even more clear.
Maybe that’s why he called it “horseshit.” The truth is that he doesn’t want people to realize that, in reality, he’s the horse in this equation -- and that he’s the one dropping the shit all over the place.