Aaron Rodgers is dutifully playing out a lost season for the New York Jets and continuing to be on time for his Tuesday hits on the Pat McAfee Show. There's no way to know where the conversation will flow when the NFL's most interesting quarterback is on the microphone and lo and behold that place was a critical one as Rodgers took aim at ESPN while on ESPN.
"There’s a lot of people talking about the game now," Rodgers opined to McAfee. "Both non-former players and former players who are trying to stay relevant fame wise. So the takes and the criticism are a lot different than they were maybe in the mid-2000s."
Rodgers clarified that he was not speaking about McAfee, but instead any number of people who may appear elsewhere on the network.
"I’m talking about these experts on TV who nobody remembers what they did in their career,” he continued. “So in order for them to stay relevant, they have to make comments that keep them in the conversation. That wasn’t going on in 2008, 2009. TheSportsCenter of my youth, those guys made highlights so much fun. And that’s what they showed on SportsCenter. Now it’s all talk shows and people whose opinions are so important now and they believe they’re the celebrities now, they’re the stars for just being able to talk about sports or give a take about sports, many of which are unfounded or asinine, as we all know. But that’s the environment we’re in now."
Rodgers is mysterious but he is certainly not an unknown entity. ESPN knows exactly what it's getting when he shows up to do McAfee's show. Whatever internal calculus is being used to determine the cost-benefit of it all to this point has resulted in the same conclusion—Rodgers is still very much welcome.
There are two ways of looking at that. The first is to be upset on ESPN's behalf that someone is playing ombudsman on their airwaves. The second is to afford them some respect for being brave enough to allow it and stick firm to their commitment to McAfee's autonomy.
Rodgers is certainly correct that SportsCenter has chanced since the beginning of his career, both in its editorial approach and its relative importance to the daily schedule. There's probably something to the idea that giving opinions is the fastest path to success and celebrity at ESPN—as well as pretty much any other outlet—and making that point to one of the network's biggest stars adds some extra layers.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Aaron Rodgers Takes Shots at ESPN While Appearing on ESPN.
