Aaron Rodgers roasts local media during possible final postgame presser of his career

The Detroit Lions ended Aaron Rodgers’ season Sunday night, but they may have also ended his playing career, which would be a tragedy for NFL media.

As Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers failed to make the playoffs in their season finale against the Lions, retirement speculation for the 39-year-old quarterback has ramped up. Rodgers was non-committal about his future when speaking to reporters, meaning Sunday night’s postgame press conference very well may have been the last of his NFL career.

The final question came from Packers beat writer Bill Huber, who inadvertently sent Rodgers into a local media roast by asking the quarterback what he’d miss if Sunday night was indeed his last game with Green Bay.

“I’m gonna miss your questions, Bill,” Rodgers joked. “And Mike Clemons taking 10 seconds to do a lead up. And Pete angling for something. And Bob writing stories about my personal life. You’ve been good lately though. And Jason bringing it back home with something that’s kind of heavy hitting. Stephanie Sutton coming out of left field with a good question.”

That’s cute. Nice to see everyone acting so chummy with each other.

Rodgers may have been trying to be facetious by claiming he’s going to miss the media’s questions. His love-hate relationship with the media became national news in recent years, aided by his appearances on The Pat McAfee Show and his gall to deceive reporters about his vaccination status before last season. But Rodgers will eventually miss the media’s questions.

Despite his tendency to mock Pat McAfee whenever he acts like a real reporter, slam an outlet such as The Athletic for what he believes is a “horsesh*t” report, or rip The Wall Street Journal for instigating “COVID toe” drama, Rodgers seeks the attention, loves the discourse, and loves portraying that he hates the mainstream media.

And just as Rodgers will miss the media, the media will miss Rodgers. They may have briefly hated being lied to about his vaccine status, but the media ultimately loves the attention Rodgers garners and the headlines he creates.

Through all the so-called “exaggerated nothingness” stories and articles written about his personal life, there’s little doubt that Rodgers and the media will mutually long for each other whenever he does finally decide to retire. Maybe Sunday night was the beginning of the end. If so, it’s been an interesting relationship to watch. But somehow, I expect that Rodgers has more touchdowns to throw, headlines to create, and outrage to spark, and the media will be right there eagerly waiting to write about it all.

[Green Bay Packers]