As Aaron Rodgers continues his battles with the media, Skip Bayless reminds everyone that he won’t be manipulated by the Green Bay Packers quarterback.
During his weekly appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers passive-aggressively blamed his teammates for the Packers’ slow start to the season. Calling out his colleagues caused Rodgers to attract widespread criticism once again, with Bayless predictably being among those critics.
“I’ve called him from day one on this show, the all-time finger-pointing blame deflector,” Bayless ranted of Rodgers on Undisputed. “And also, the all-time master media manipulator. He’s trying to manipulate the media into saying, ‘boy it’s their fault, poor Aaron, he’s stuck with all these idiots around him.’”
Rodgers is currently stuck in a never-ending cycle where he speaks recklessly to Pat McAfee on Tuesday, gets grilled by reporters over what he told McAfee on Wednesday, and listens to hot takes on Thursday. But Rodgers doesn’t seem to be trying to break the cycle, which seemingly makes him the antithesis of a master media manipulator.
Bayless has repeatedly labeled Rodgers a “master media manipulator,” he’s also made the same claim about LeBron James. Like Rodgers, James will passive-aggressively call out his teammates, unlike Rodgers, James is a bit more of a sports media darling.
Since he began broadcasting his individualistic attitude, Rodgers has made countless enemies in the media. Yes, he still gets well-deserved credit for being a good football player, but is Rodgers doing a good job of manipulating the media if few people in the media write nice things about him? Brett Favre spent a career manipulating the media until reporters who spent a lifetime fawning over the Hall-of-Famer finally started accepting the fact that he’s a bad person.
But the media perception of Rodgers already changed, with the quarterback acknowledging it feels like a line in the sand has been drawn between himself and those who cover him. Rarely does he say something that causes positive headlines to be written. Rodgers has been accused of a lot of things in the last year and a half, and being able to manipulate the media is not one of them.
