Are we seeing - at least reading about - a new Aaron Rodgers?
The smug New York Jets ' quarterback with a history of professing to "know it all" has seemingly taken a couple of steps toward humility. At least, that is, according to a new unauthorized biography: Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers .
The book includes a scene of Rodgers having a reunion meeting with his estranged father at a golf tournament earlier this Summer. And in another chapter, Rodgers told author Ian O'Connor that he wishes he hadn't used the term "immunized" in 2021 when he was asked if he had received the COVID-19 vaccine.
"If there's one thing I wish could have gone different, it's that, because that's the only thing critics could hit me with," Rodgers said in the book, via ESPN.
At the time Rodgers played for the Green Bay Packers and was asked during the preseason if he had been "vaccinated" against COVID as mandated by the NFL. He responded only that he had been "immunized," which left people scratching their heads.
Rodgers tested positive for COVID in November 2021, and was forced by the league to follow the safety protocols of players who had not been vaccinated. He used the word "immunized" to describe a homeopathic treatment regimen and appealed to the NFL to count him as vaccinated. The league, however, turned him down.
The incident instantly changed Rodgers' public image from a rugged, intelligent quarterback to a conspiracy theorist.
"I had an immunization card from my holistic doctor, which looked similar," Rodgers says in the book. "I wasn't trying to pawn it off as a vaccine card, but I said, 'Listen, here's my protocol. Here's what you can follow to look this up.' And it was an ongoing appeal. So, if I had just said [I was unvaccinated] in the moment, there's no chance that the appeal would have been handled the exact same way."
Asked at the time why he avoided the COVID vaccine, Rodgers infamously said he'd done his "own research." As recently as this Spring he tongue-in-cheek challenged Dr. Anthony Fauci to a public debate about COVID.
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