While NBC Sports NFL insider Mike Florio believes the New York Jets deserve blame for their PR “blunder” around Aaron Rodgers missing the mandatory minicamp this month, Florio also aimed Rodgers over his inflated ego and hypocrisy around distractions to the team.
In an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show on Wednesday, Florio highlighted the double standard at play between Rodgers and his Jets teammates before calling out Rodgers’ interviews on podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience, The Tucker Carlson Show, or Look Into It with Eddie Bravo as “safe spaces” rather than the truth-telling platforms they claim to be.
“I think that Aaron Rodgers and I have some things in common. I’d like to think I could maybe get through to him, and we could have a real debate,” Florio said. “But that’s the thing with him, he never wants to talk to anybody who might disagree with him. He goes on all these safe space podcasts and says all this crazy stuff, and the hosts never say, ‘Dude, you’ve got to maybe try decaf or read a different book.’ Everything isn’t a conspiracy. I love a good conspiracy theory. I love one. Not a thousand of them. It can’t be that everything is a product of some massive government conspiracy.”
Florio acknowledged he and the rest of NFL media give extra attention to Rodgers and the Jets, and said if he ever met Rodgers it wouldn’t go well. But that didn’t stop the Pro Football Talk writer and editor from attacking Rodgers’ “crazy-a**” point of view and comparing him to dishonest politicians across America.
“He gets in front of microphones and cameras and he wags his finger in January about how ‘next year, it’s got to be all about winning‘ … but, ‘oh, you know what, I might run for vice president and ghost the Jets.’ And I’m going to go on all these different podcasts and spew these crazy-a** conspiracy theories, but that doesn’t count because it didn’t happen in the building,” Florio said. “He’s very good at crafting a standard and not applying it to himself. Some might say he’s perfectly suited to go into politics, which I think is inevitable.”
So far this offseason, Rodgers has been a content gold mine for NFL media. It remains to be seen how much longer that will last, given the Jets are not expected to compete for a Super Bowl and Rodgers is returning from a significant injury.
