On Monday, Aaron Rodgers had some strong things to say about ESPN. While appearing on ESPN.
Per an ESPN spokesperson, ESPN has no comment regarding Rodgers’s comments.
Rodgers’s rant initially focused on Dr. Anthony Fauci, as Rodgers did a COVID victory lap — one that glossed over the fact that Rodgers was disingenuous at best when he misled reporters in August 2021 on the question of whether he had received a vaccine. Rodgers then pivoted to ESPN, for not covering Fauci’s repeated invocation of the Fifth Amendment at a Senate hearing last Thursday. (Should it have been the lead item on SportsCenter?)
“How much time did the network spend on that?” Rodgers said. “How much time do they spend on my responses every week? On my vaccination status, on Taylor [Swift] and Travis [Kelce’s] wedding? Did they do even a minute? Did they do even a minute on Tony Fauci? No, I bet they didn’t.”
Rodgers also chastised ESPN for not covering the Mike Vrabel-Dianna Russini situation.
“Then there was another scandal this offseason, too, involving a voter for MVP, for coach of the year,” Rodgers said. “How much time did your network spend on that? . . . Like, you have literally an individual that maybe used to work at ESPN that covers our league at the highest level, and there’s a major scandal, and it’s just, like, nobody can fucking talk about it. What are we even doing here? . . . [I]f it’s affecting certain things, if there’s leaks going on, if there’s tampering going on, if that person is also an MVP voter and a coach of the year voter.”
While ESPN did cover it to an extent, it wasn’t as big of a deal as it could have been. A thorough item from Ben Strauss was posted by ESPN.com on a Friday afternoon, with no corresponding car wash of interviews on the various ESPN shows. And ESPN has kept its head low and its mouth shut regarding the question of whether the relationship between Vrabel and Russini impacted her reporting while she worked for ESPN.
Rodgers also accused ESPN of being a “gutless organization” with “no integrity.”
Last year, Rodgers ended his weekly Tuesday visits with Pat McAfee on ESPN. It will be very interesting to see whether Rodgers, in his final NFL season, resumes making the appearances — and whether he continues to air personal grievances and settle old scores.
And whether he continues to take shots at the company that ultimately owns the platform, without any pushback from ESPN.
