Couch: Aaron Rodgers Is Blowing It, Big Time
We have now moved to the next stage of Aaron Rodgers’ temper tantrum. This is the holding-his-breath stage.
Or, you can call it the Jake Kumerow Stage.
Rodgers remains the big story in sports, and Monday’s developments included:
1) Terry Bradshaw calling him “dumber than a box of rocks.’’
2) Rodgers himself liking a tweet from Green Bay Packers receiver Davante Adams that read, “Gotta appreciate what u got while ya got it!’’
And best of all 3) NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reporting that a “death knell” of Rodgers’ relationship with Green Bay management came when they cut receiver Jake Kumerow in September.
Jake. Kumerow.
So that’s what this is about now? Jake Kumerow? You might remember Kumerow as . . . no, you won’t remember him. The Packers dumped him and then the Buffalo Bills picked him up for a few weeks and dumped him, too.
Rodgers is playing from the wrong playbook here. In the summer, he talked about watching “The Last Dance,’’ the Michael Jordan-approved 10-part remembrance of Jordan’s dynasty with the Chicago Bulls. Rodgers told reporters he idolized Jordan as a kid and went to his last regular-season game.
As documented in “The Last Dance,’’ Jordan got into a public fight late in his career with owner Jerry Reinsdorf and general manager Jerry Krause, who seemed to think that the Bulls organization, not Jordan, was responsible for the Bulls’ championships.
Jordan laughed that off and publicly poked fun at Krause. Rodgers might have been inspired by that. But he’s blowing it and losing the PR battle because of one statistic:
Jordan won six NBA Championships. Rodgers has won one Super Bowl.
Years ago, when I got my first sports column, the managing editor called me into his office and offered me my first bit of advice: He called it the pain-in-the-ass factor. There will always be a place for you in any field, he said, as long as your production outweighs the amount of a pain in the butt you are.
So mathematically, Jordan’s accepted pain-in-the-butt level was six times greater than Rodgers’.
Jordan made last-second shots to win big games. Maybe if Rodgers had punched in a touchdown in the final minutes of the NFC Championship Game against Tom Brady when he had first and goal at the 8, then Rodgers would have earned at least another half step of breathing room in the pain-in-the-ass o’meter.
But no, Rodgers wants to be treated like Brady, who left New England for Tampa and was given control of everything he wanted, including signings and the playbook. And he’s trying to get there by following Jordan’s path.
Rodgers is a Hall of Famer, but he isn’t Brady. And he certainly isn’t Jordan.
In Green Bay, management is playing this perfectly. General manager Brian Gutekunst, who Rodgers is trying to portray as a modern-day Krause, keeps saying how important Rodgers is. He is not saying that organizations win championships.
Still, it’s fully possible that Rodgers is going to win this game. One Super Bowl is still more than none, and the Packers are built to win now. If Rodgers leaves and the Packers have to go with quarterback Jordan Love, well, look out below.
All along, Rodgers’ problem was that Gutekunst had drafted Love last year in the first round without communicating his intentions to (read: getting permission from) Rodgers. So Rodgers wasn’t going to play for the Packers as long as Gutekunst was GM.
Taking a long term quarterback project isn’t such a bad idea when you have a 36-year-old star who has had a couple of iffy years and multiple concussions.
Then Rodgers’ problem was that coach Matt LaFleur hadn’t communicated that the offense wouldn’t get four chances to score in the final minutes of the Championship Game. LaFleur kicked a field goal that left the Packers down by 5 and gave Brady the ball.
Since then, LaFleur and Gutekunst have flown out to visit Rodgers and begged him to come back. They have also publicly groveled, saying that yes, they need to communicate better.
But Rodgers needs to communicate better with the fans. He needs to come out and say what his actual problem is, and not just keep having his people leak tiny things to the media.
Like: Jake Kumerow.
His paranoia over Love doesn’t make any sense. Love didn’t even make it to second string last year. Rodgers was the league’s MVP. Is there really a chance that the Packers will bench the MVP in favor of a third-stringer? No.
The Milwaukee Journal had two columns in the past few days saying that the Packers should go ahead and trade Rodgers, that he’s losing support of the fans.
And Bradshaw, on the “Parkins & Spiegel Show’’ on 670-AM The Score in Chicago Monday said Rodgers is “dumber than a box of rocks, isn’t he?. . .
“Here let me say this: If I’m Green Bay, I call his bluff. I don’t budge. I do not budge. . .I don’t know what the deal is. If I’m him, if he’s that unhappy (at) 38 year old, retire. Go to California. Go do the game show. I don’t care what he does.’’
Rodgers is blowing it. He really needed to convert on first and goal. But he didn’t. Holding his breath now just makes him a big pain in the butt.