Hasn’t Mike Greenberg suffered enough?
After months of hyping the Aaron Rodgers-led New York Jets, the four-time NFL MVP finally made his debut Monday night. Four snaps were all it took for the crowd to be silenced and Greenberg to be absolutely devastated as Rodgers was carted off the field with what the Jets have now confirmed is a torn left Achilles tendon.
After months of hyping the Aaron Rodgers-led New York Jets, the four-time NFL MVP finally made his debut Monday night, but like the rest of us, was left stunned as Rodgers’ season ended after just four snaps.
Greeny: "In all honesty, people want to know how I feel and the truth is there is no way in the world I have processed this." pic.twitter.com/y5uTzqqjeR
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 12, 2023
Now, he’s being held responsible for Rodgers’ Achillies injury by Fred Toucher, who has a history of showing some disdain towards Greenberg, even recently referring to him as a “no-talent p***k.”
And believe it or not, even though he hosts a Boston radio show, Toucher happens to be a Jets fan himself. So, we can see exactly what stage of grief he is and how he’s currently coping with the “awful” loss of Rodgers.
“It’s Mike Greenberg’s fault that Aaron Rodgers got hurt,” Toucher said this week on Boston’s 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher and Rich show. “It’s Mike Greenberg’s silly, little cutesy theatrics that got him hurt.”
As a Jets fan myself, I will admit that Greenberg has been insufferable at times. And even Chris Carlin referred to him as a “totalitarian dictator” over his Aaron Rodgers-fueled Jets obsession. Now Greenberg would never make me hate the Jets, they already do that themselves. But if you aren’t a fan of his antics, and someone like Toucher is a prime example, you probably wouldn’t like how over the top he’s been leading up to Monday night.
Now, blaming Greenberg for Rodgers’ tearing his Achilles is a bit much. You can blame the turf, whoever’s genius idea it was to play back-to-back games on MetLife Stadium’s rain-soaked field, or just the football gods for having it out against the Jets. But it’s easy to see how Toucher would blame the guy who said he’d consider chopping off his pinky toe for Aaron Rodgers, as well as ranking Pat McAfee’s Aaron Rodgers interview alongside the birth of his children and promising he’d drop an f-bomb on air if Rodgers wins the Super Bowl, then revised downwards to even just winning the AFC championship.
So when you add up all those theatrics, it makes sense why Toucher isn’t quite fond of the way Greenberg handled everything leading up to Rodgers’ four snaps in a Jets uniform. Now, let’s not go as far as to say that he’s responsible and the one to blame. There are plenty of Jets fans who were over the top about Rodgers joining their quarterback-starved team, Greenberg is just a little bit more accessible to the public eye.
As someone who has dealt with Jets fan optimism for my entire life, I once had someone come up to me at my local grocery store and tell me they bought 17 Brett Favre jerseys for every game he’d win for New York that season. Favre’s tenure in New York was an unmitigated disaster after he injured his throwing arm and faded down the stretch. The Jets won nine games, missed the playoffs and Favre retired and then un-retired again to join the Minnesota Vikings.
So I get where Toucher is coming from. But it seems like he’s projecting this sort of over-the-topness Rodgers fawning onto Greenberg because of his public image as a Jets fan and the fact that he thinks he’s a “no-talent p***k.”
“[He was] really just [being] a silly goose about the whole thing,” Toucher added. “He was not cool.”
Jets fans want to find someone to blame, and maybe in this instance, Greenberg fits the bill.
[98.5 The Sports Hub via Barrett Sports Media]
