At a time when many assume that Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers will emerge from 96 hours in voluntary solitary confinement with a plan to play for the Jets, a former player who knows plenty about the way the media in New York covers pro athletes thinks Rodgers won’t be able to handle the things inevitably written and said about him there.
Former Giants running back Tiki Barber, reacting on his WFAN radio show to Rodgers’s recent complaints about reporting by Ian Rapoport and Adam Schefter, suggested that Rodgers is too delicate to tolerate the intensity of the Big Apple’s giant spotlight.
“If he is that sensitive that he gets upset that people, reporters, opinion-makers, influencers, whoever, want to talk about him, he is going to struggle in New York,” Barber said, via SI.com. “And I don’t know if it’s the right fit for him. I don’t know if I want him in New York if this is going to be his reaction to things that don’t matter.”
Barber echoed a point that was made here, after Rodgers ranted that Rapoport and Schefter “don’t know shit” about him.
“If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t want people talking about him, talking about his offseason, talking about his personal life, talking about all these things that are going on with Aaron Rodgers, he needs to stop talking,” Barber said.
“When you go, and you do something that feels odd to normal society — which is going to sit in a cabin in the woods for four days in complete sensory isolation, [the media is] gonna talk about it. You have to. It’s our job to. And for him to get offended by that, he’s not going to handle the intensity of the New York mediascape — that’s obviously traditional media, social and everything else — if he’s here.”
Amen to all of that. Rodgers is like so many athletes and celebrities who want fame and attention on their own terms. All the praise, with none of the criticism.
Hey everybody, look at me . . . what the hell are you looking at?
For selfish reasons, I want Rodgers to play for the Jets. It’s good for business. Even if it’s bad for the Jets and Rodgers.
Indeed, here’s the first subject for intense scrutiny if/when Rodgers agrees to play for the team owned by Woody Johnson. Rodgers recently argued that members of the media have painted him as a villain at the direct behest of Big Pharma. Johnson’s fortune came directly from one of the three companies that made a COVID vaccine (Johnson & Johnson). During Rodgers’s introductory press conference, someone inevitably will ask whether it’s hypocritical for Rodgers to take a paycheck indirectly from a Big Pharma conglomerate at which he’s apparently big mad.
In other cities, the question wouldn’t get asked. In New York, you can bank on it happening.