Aaron Rodgers is infamous for being an eccentric personality in the NFL, and that continued to be the case Wednesday.
The former Green Bay Packers quarterback has been open about his experience with psychedelics like Ayahuasca, which he believes has given him a healing effect. He has a fascination with conspiracy theories, and this offseason, the 39-year-old went on a darkness retreat to help him contemplate his future.
That led him to want to play for the Jets, and New York finalized its trade for the four-time MVP and introduced him in a news conference Wednesday.
Rodgers has desired transparency and openness throughout the offseason, and it was a lack of communication from the Packers that led him to seek out other options. However, Green Bay had trouble connecting with the All-Pro quarterback. General manager Brian Gutekunst told reporters in March there were many unsuccessful attempts to get in touch with Rodgers, per ESPN’s Rob Demovsky.
The veteran quarterback gave an interesting explanation as to why that was the case.
“I don’t know if I need to really get into the specifics,” Rodgers told reporters, per Demovsky. “I will say people that know me, I’m fortunate to live in a beautiful house, the only downside is I have very limited cell service. So if you want to get ahold of me, I have to see your face. You’ve got to FaceTime me. So the only response to the communication thing is there’s records in your phone about who called you, when, FaceTime, and there wasn’t any specific FaceTimes from any of those specific numbers that I was looking at. That’s neither here not there because now we’re in this position.
“Obviously, that’s somehow the direction that they wanted to go as far as the story they couldn’t get ahold of me, which led for this to be the case. My point was if there was a change that wanted to be made, why wasn’t that told to me earlier in the offseason. Now obviously my future was undecided at the time. I didn’t know if I wanted to keep playing. I wanted to go into my darkness retreat and sit with it and contemplate. But when I came out, it was evident that it was retire or move on to a new team.”
Rodgers has made himself a lot of money throughout his career, so it seems strange he would not have great cell service. His ability to call into the “Pat McAfee Show” hasn’t seemed to be an issue, though that might just confirm his preference for video communication.
This also has fans wondering why Gutekunst didn’t simply just FaceTime with Rodgers. Does the Packers GM have an Android? There still are plenty of ways to video chat with someone who doesn’t have a compatible phone, though it’s unknown if Rodgers is a WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger user.
It’s an interesting reason for a lack of communication, but it might just leave more questions for Packers fans and wonder what could have been.
