Perfunctory Aaron Rodgers-Flavored Content Item #420666905

I didn't want to write about Aaron Rodgers. You don't want to read about him. Let's just do this and get it out of the way.

The Aaron Rodgers/Steelers signing finally coughed and chugged into our newsfeeds last Thursday afternoon on the caboose of one of the most hysterically-dystopian runaway current-event bullet trains in recent memory. The sprawling NFL content-creation complex, wearily yearning for the blessed lull that extends from Father’s Day through Bastille Day – the only downtime left on the football media schedule – shuddered a collective groan as my colleagues and I mustered faux enthusiasm for this story like the volunteers at a nursing-home New Years’ Eve party. You’re not dead yet, Eunice, so put on this plastic hat and enjoy the diet ginger ale in the champagne flute.

Rodgers’ trade to the Jets back in the 2023 offseason was a clickbait cornucopia. Everything from the pre-trade speculation (remember the debate about whether the Packers or Jets had “leverage”?) through the deal itself to Rodgers’ whirlwind tour of Rangers games and Taylor Swift concerts was breathlessly covered/aggregated. Rodgers’ 2023 offseason was a weekday casino buffet of iffy freshness but gluttonous proportions. Those who didn’t care about Rodgers could convincingly fake it like bored porn stars for the benefit of a fascinated audience who did. Skeptics and smartasses (hi) could skim off the top.

Two years later, Rodgers is an off-off-Broadway revue, and no one appears to have any fucks left to give about him.