This morning I was assigned to evaluate the Aaron Rodgers-Aubrey Marcus podcast about the quarterback, excuse me, person’s self-reflection after the darkness. Over what was a sprawling conversation that wasn’t as interesting as the two thought it was, I am now dumber for having listened to it. Oh, and by the way, there’s still no football decision, but Rodgers admitted it’s best if it’s made sooner rather than later.
I’m not sure how to feel about that because he’s currently his own content factory, one in which I’ve been laboring away, inhaling fumes that will inevitably give me cancer.
Speaking of hot air, there was a massive amount spilled in that hour and a half, so let’s look at some of the highlights before my brain leaks out of my ears.
The ins and outs of the retreat
The conversation opened with the easily aggregatable stuff — how did you get around in the dark, how did you put toothpaste on your toothbrush, how did you wipe your ass. The answers, and I’m paraphrasing, were “Not very well,” “I squirted the toothpaste in my mouth,” and “The diet I was on lent itself to a lot of smooth No. 2s.”
It’s a darkness retreat; I assume the only sustenance is berries and milk from various nuts. Rodgers said it was a lot of two-wipers and occasionally he felt like he didn’t even need to wipe at all. Aubrey countered with an anecdote from his own retreat where he ingested so much coconut oil he had violent diarrhea. And then the two of them talked about “Ghost shits,” which I guess is when you think you shit but didn’t. I’m not sure, and I’m not going to Google it.
Not allowed to make fun of the retreat because it was for mental health
The hell I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with prioritizing your brain. Therapy is helpful, but I’ll equate it to this: If you saw someone working on their physical health by using a Mueller Exercise Belt — the machine that just jiggles you while you stand there — you’d probably laugh.
You’d laugh because it looks ridiculous, and there are other, more proven forms of addressing your mental health than something foolish like locking yourself in a windowless hotel room for four days. I’m not faulting Rodgers for working on his mental health. I’m giving him shit because he and Marcus had a conversation about how it’s not solitary confinement because there’s a little window in the jail cell, and they had no light at all.
The duo chatted barefoot in designer sweatpants at a mountain retreat, and you know there was a crystal collection not far off-camera.
Then Rodgers revealed that he responded to a darkness detractor on Twitter with the Ted Lasso quote (that’s a Walt Whitman quote): “Be curious, not judgemental.” And I gotta say I have never been less excited for the return of a show that I genuinely loved, and that’s including the post-Michael Scott seasons of The Office.
Aubrey Marcus is to Aaron Rodgers what Alex Guerrero is to Tom Brady
The only thing I found interesting about the podcast was Rodgers budding broship with Marcus. The podcast host of a “motivational destination for conversations” was at a couple of road games, and a bunch of home games, and for whatever reason — drugs, adulation, shamanism — it feels like Marcus has a large influence on the QB.
I had no idea this Aubrey Marcus character existed before this morning. He made nine figures off his supplement business that was bolstered by sidling up to Joe Rogan. (I’ll wait while you make your InfoWars jokes.) The amount of self-indulgent nonsense spewed between the two was enough to get me to weigh the feasibility of ripping off the leg of my desk and impaling myself, and this was at the 45-minute mark of the show.
Aubrey found correlations to Rodgers’ football career with his own pickup basketball league, was a word or two away from quoting the “Show them who you are” line from Black Panther, wept over his own Lord of the Rings analogy, and rattled off one-liners like this “matters to the forging of the blade of who I am.”
What “this” was I have no idea, just like I have no idea how I’m supposed to enjoy a world where Aubrey fucking Marcus made hundreds of millions of dollars off of supplements.
Rodgers wants you to know that he’s super smart
These were actual sentences uttered by Rodgers:
“I’m athletic but also super smart.”
“I never wanted to be just a football player. Cuz I’m a smart guy who went on Jeopardy and won.”
It was Celebrity Jeopardy first of all, and Rodgers isn’t the first person to be (allegedly) smart and play football. Former NFL safety Myron Rolle, who actually is smart, was a fucking Rhodes Scholar and is currently a neurosurgeon. Rodgers said, with 100 percent seriousness, “I have three god sons now” as if he’s Carl Winslow. OK, but that doesn’t make you a father, just like auditioning to host Jeopardy doesn’t make you Alex Trebek.
Rodgers football future
The majority of the conversation centered around Rodgers’ coming to terms with what life would be like if he retired and what life would be like if he kept playing. His come to Jesus moment happened when he realized: “What if I just embraced I am a football player?”
Marcus then reassured Rodgers that he still has it like the fanboy that this podcast proved him to be. The quarterback ultimately reached the conclusion that “Both options feel nourishing and special.” Wait, so, when faced with the options to retire a multimillionaire before 40, or play another season of the sport that made you a multimillionaire, Rodgers feels comfortable either way? Good god, I don’t need a metric ton of supplements and an extended nap to figure that out.
The football part of the discussion devolved into the same tired cliches that sports podcasts always do — it’s about accountability and the team — and not a word was said about whether Rodgers feels that way about next year’s Packers, or another NFL franchise.
He’s in a “post-tragic state of consciousness” (Marcus’ words, not mine), and will be happy with whatever decision he makes. I’m just happy it’s almost over.