Aaron Rodgers defended his recent visit to Egypt, a trip that saw the New York Jets quarterback miss mandatory minicamp.
On a Barstool Sports podcast released on Monday, Rodgers discussed why he felt the timing of his trip to Egypt was not an issue. The Jets quarterback clearly outlined why, in his estimation, the timing of his trip is not significant ahead of his second season with the franchise.
Asked about any fallout from his trip, Rodgers said “I’m sure I’ll get fined for that.” He then explained his viewpoint of the importance (or lack thereof) of missing minicamp in a recent appearance on ‘Pardon My Take.’
“The thing that I think people don’t understand is that when, when I was in NFC North and playing for that team years ago, there used to be a real thing called minicamp, where it was, you had one of them, usually, sometimes it’s right after the draft,” Rodgers told Barstool Sports, referencing his time with the Green Bay Packers.
“But either way, it was five practices in three days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday so two practices on Friday, two on Saturday, one on Sunday. Now it’s not minicamp.
“They can arbitrarily put a tag on whatever week of OTAs they want – yeah is the minicamp week, which makes it somehow more mandatory than the other weeks. But it was an OTA schedule. That’s how it’s – you know how words can be a little deceiving from time-to-time. You can make a story of the fact that I missed a mini-camp when it’s really two OTA days, right?
“I came to the first 10 (OTA practices).”
Rodgers was then asked “if it was a media thing” to which he shrugged.
Later in the episode, one of Barstool’s cast of characters emerged to ask Rodgers some questions. Known as ‘Memes,’ the Barstool employee deadpanned several questions to the future Hall of Fame quarterback.
Among the questions was if “a couple of missed practices will have any effect on the season?”
“Yea, big effect,” Rodgers said.
“I’m glad you said practices, thank you. OTA practices.”
