RODGERS IS A CRACKPOT FRAUD, BUT PACKERS ARE LOST WITHOUT HIM

Those hoping for a Whole Lotta Love realize the young QB isn’t ready, meaning a contender’s hopes hinge on the volatile theories and moods of America’s self-absorbed pandemic pariah

     Not that I’m trained for the challenge. Not even the sharpest shrinks can psychoanalyze the demise of Aaron Rodgers from admired American quarterback to “Saturday Night Live’’-mocked nut job. But someone must try to figure him out, for the betterment of a flummoxed, outraged nation that smells a fraud.

     And, too, for the sake of the Green Bay Packers, who’d hoped in the spirit of Lennon and McCartney that all they needed was Love. Alas, young Jordan Love isn’t remotely ready for the Super Bowl tournament, or anything but a backup’s sideline iPad, showing only a few late passing sparks Sunday while struggling against the blitzing of a porous defense in a 13-7 loss to Kansas City. Thus ended the pipedream that Love could force Rodgers to the bench, or to further exile, and lead a contender into the postseason.

     Somewhere in COVID-19 quarantine, sticking pins into his Love doll, Rodgers could take solace in knowing his designated heir apparent — the one management never informed him about before 2020 Draft Night — is still raw. But he remains a monumental distraction for the Packers and an ongoing migraine for the NFL, and an annoyance for the rest of us. Meanwhile, we’ll see if he is healthy enough for next Sunday’s home game against Seattle and, more importantly, if he chooses to just take the damn vaccine instead of perpetuating his gutless, crackpot, hocus-pocus, anti-vaxx madness.

     What happened to this man’s once-enlightened gray matter? Was it hijacked by a maharishi? Is he microdosing ‘shrooms? When he’s relying on Joe Rogan for epidemiological advice, referencing Martin Luther King Jr. as a means of no-vaxx justification and using Pat McAfee’s bro-dude radio show as a sounding board, Rodgers obviously has lost his mind, his soul, his life compass.

     May I suggest a timeline when he checked out of life as he knew it? At some point between his Danica Patrick breakup, his professional rebound to league MVP-dom, his latest postseason disappointment, his offseason trashing of team management, his pangs to host “Jeopardy!’’ and his engagement to a mysterious figure named Shailene Woodley — in that period, A-Rod became a bigger idiot than, well, the original A-Rod.

     His fierce independence, which once served him well, has morphed into a superiority complex. Or, is it a God complex? This is a dangerous pot — unharnessed megalomania amid a still-tricky pandemic and raging conspiracy theories — and it led Rodgers to lie about his vaccination status and turn him into a cultural pariah last week. It doesn’t appall us that he refused to be jabbed with an approved vaccine, as is his right. It angers us that he tried to double-cross the world with his reckless and self-centered deceptions, falsely claiming he was “immunized’’ without any regard for the health of his teammates, coaches and others in the daily Green Bay workplace. He thought so highly of his bamboozling skills that he tried to fool the NFL office, even attending a Halloween party without a mask and boarding team flights to road games without a facial covering.

     When he inevitably tested positive for the coronavirus, Rodgers continued to play mind games. Never mind that his use of ivermectin, as urged by holistic “healers’’ and other such quacks pushing homeopathic medicine, is rejected as perilous by federal health regulators. Remember, he is the Smartest Man on Earth.

     “I’m not some sort of anti-vaxx flat-earther. I am somebody who’s a critical thinker. I march to the beat of my own drum,’’ he said, throwing himself a pity party. “I realize I'm in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now, so before my final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I think I'd like to set the record straight on so many of the blatant lies that are out there about myself right now. I believe strongly in bodily autonomy, and the ability to make choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something.’’

     Only weeks ago, he pranced into the end zone in Chicago, made his trademark title-belt gesture and screamed at despondent Bears fans stuck in a lopsided rivalry, “I have owned you all my f—ing life. I own you! I still own you!’’ Now, Rodgers is owned by science, which has exposed him as a liar and a charlatan.

     “The right is gonna champion me, and the left is gonna cancel me,’’ he said, sounding like a WWE villain. “And the whole time, I don’t give a shit about either of them. Politics is a total sham.”

     No, Rodgers is the sham. The league office, besieged by numerous scandals this season and not popular among the masses, quickly gained widespread support by refuting his assertion that he spoke to a league doctor. In another lie, he claims the doctor said vaccinated people can’t catch or spread COVID-19. Roger Goodell, the Packers, social media, responsible Americans — who isn’t pissed at Rodgers right now? He violated protocols and assumed he was bigger than the virus.

     Now, he’s a laughingstock. Played by Pete Davidson, with Cecily Strong as Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, Rodgers may or may not have tuned into “SNL’’ over the weekend during his 10-day isolation shutdown. His sense of humor, which used to shine through refreshingly, no doubt was quashed by the skit.

     “Our first guest is brave enough to say ‘Screw you, science. I know Joe Rogan.’ Please welcome NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers,” Strong’s Pirro said.

     “It’s my body and my Covid,” Davidson’s Rodgers said. “I can give it to whoever I want. But suddenly, the woke mob has come after me.”

     The audience howled.

     “I never lied,” he said. “I took all my teammates into a huddle. Got all their faces three inches away from my wet mouth, and told them, ‘Trust me, I’m more or less immunized.’ ’’

     The Packers still might need Love to grow up in a hurry. Who knows how Rodgers will respond when the league fines him and the Packers heavily — a suspension won’t happen, apparently — for their protocol violations. He isn’t thinking straight, capable of blowing up on McAfee’s show or walking away … or who knows what? Recalling his lifeless and aloof performance in a Week 1 blowout, might Rodgers tank again as the Packers lose ground in the NFC playoff seedings race? Hell, only a few months ago, he talked of leaving permanently for the “Jeopardy!’’ gig if his bosses didn’t honor his trade demand.

     So when Jordan Love says, “I tell myself that I’m a great player. I’m ready for this.’’ Those can’t be hollow words. As long as Aaron Rodgers prioritizes “bodily autonomy’’ over the needs of his team — the one that gave him a $134 million extension and has to tolerate his behavior — someone will have to be the adult in the locker room.

     “This one falls on me, squarely,’’ said the beleaguered Packers coach, Matt LaFleur. “Certainly, for us to be 2-for-12 on third down, obviously didn't have a good enough plan for some of the zero pressures that they brought on us. I thought Jordan, I was really proud of the way he played. He hung in there, he was taking hits and delivering the ball. I thought he did a really good job. But I think that, ultimately, I've got to be better and this one falls squarely on me.’’ He added of Rodgers, “He’s our starting quarterback. We just need to make sure he’s well in tune with our plan, and we’ll see where he’s at at the end of the week.”

     “Obviously, not good enough," Love said. “I think we started off a little slow; I started off a little slow, personally. I think we got into a bit of a rhythm later. Obviously, it was too late. Just not good enough.’’

     You’d think No. 12, with a week to think in his No. 1 purgatory, would realize he has trashed — in one miserable, avoidable week — an image he had built for 17 years. “Jeopardy!’’ won’t want him now. The networks won’t want him now. Chillingly, he should know another NFL team might not want him next year, either, realizing the quackery and drama aren’t worth the production.

     It might be time, then, to stop consulting Joe Rogan and return to Planet Earth. I mean, Terry Bradshaw, who barely can narrate a football highlight these days, eviscerated him on the Fox pre-game show, which aired from the U.S. Naval Academy.

     “I’ll give Aaron Rodgers some advice,” Bradshaw said. “It would have been nice if he had just come to the Naval Academy and learned how to be honest. Learned not to lie. Because that’s what you did, Aaron. You lied to everyone. I understand ‘immunized.’ What you were doing was taking stuff that would keep you from getting COVID-19. You got COVID-19.

     “Ivermectin is a cattle dewormer. Sorry, folks, that’s what it is. We are a divided nation politically. We are a divided nation on the COVID-19, whether or not to take the vaccine. And unfortunately, we’ve got players that pretty much think only about themselves. And I’m extremely disappointed in the actions of Aaron Rodgers.’’

     Love is all you need.

     But hate is all we have.

     Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he has gravitated by osmosis to film projects.