Aaron Rodgers: Being mic’d up caused Randall Cobb’s punctured lung

Green Bay Packers star quarterback Aaron Rodgers blames “mic’d up” technology for teammate Randall Cobb suffering a punctured lung in the team’s 26-20 playoff loss to the Arizona Cardinals in January.

Rodgers appeared on former teammate A.J. Hawk’s “Hawkcast” podcast on Thursday, and explained how he believes — and he thinks the team believes — Cobb falling on the mic pack caused the wide receiver’s punctured lung (via Pro Football Talk):

“Randall Cobb had a serious injury last year in a playoff game and I believe, as I think he would as well and the team, that that was caused from him being mic’d up,” Rodgers said. “Because he fell on his mic pack and he had an injury to his insides that kept him out of the game and probably would have kept him out of the rest of the playoffs. The puncture spot, or the injury spot, was directly adjacent to his mic pack.”

Here is the (amazing) play where Cobb apparently got hurt:

We’ll probably never know if the mic pack truly caused Cobb’s injury, but either way, Rodgers isn’t a fan of the mic’d up technology:

“Yeah, I think it’s too much information,” Rodgers said. “In 2008 there used to be no headset on defense, so the defense had to signal in every play and that was part of the whole Spygate issue and filming signals and what not. But now you have mics on both guards most of the time and you pick up everything that the quarterback says when we’re at home, and sometimes on the road as well, and I think that’s a competitive edge for the defense and it makes you have to work that much harder with your dummy words and your live and dead words. I mean, that’s part of the game there, but I think that the access is a little bit much.

“I think being mic’d up, when I’m mic’d up, it takes away from the authenticity of the game for me. I don’t feel comfortable mic’d up.”

They could even move to point-of-view, GoPro-esque cameras in the future as Hawk brought up to Rodgers in the podcast. If so, Rodgers most definitely wouldn’t agree to wear one of those, and joked that he “might have to call it a career” if players are required to wear point-of-view cameras:

“I don’t get mic’d up. I’m not going to wear that,” Rodgers replied.

“What if they put them on every guy?” Hawk asked.

“Might have to call it a career,” Rodgers said with a laugh.

This is pretty notable, given that it’s one of the league’s very best players complaining about the mic’d up technology, and in detail. But it’s unlikely the NFL does anything about it anytime soon.

[PFT]