As soon as it was announced that Ian O’Connor would be writing a biography about New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers, people wondered what the mercurial and controversial NFL player would have to say.
Rodgers’ Hall-of-Fame-worthy NFL career has been overshadowed in recent years by his conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine commentary off the field. The big question was how much of that would be covered by the New York Times bestselling author of biographies about Derek Jeter, Mike Krzyzewski, and Bill Belichick.
Details are trickling out as Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers approaches its August 20 launch date.
Perhaps the most notable detail released so far is that Rodgers admits he regrets his controversial “immunized” comment during the COVID-19 pandemic, though perhaps not for the reasons some might think.
“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.
Rodgers courted controversy before the 2021 NFL season when he appealed to the league to count his homeopathic treatment regimen as being vaccinated. He was denied but that information was not made public until Adam Schefter reported Rodgers was considered “unvaccinated” in November after testing positive for COVID-19. That was news to a lot of people because the QB told reporters he was “immunized” at an August press conference. The fallout kicked off Rodgers’ public descent into becoming a champion of the anti-vax movement and other conspiracy theories.
“But if I could do it again, I would have said [in August], f— the appeal. I’m just going to tell them I’m allergic to PEG, I’m not getting Johnson & Johnson, I’m not going to be vaxxed,'” Rodgers said in O’Connor’s upcoming book. “I had an immunization card from my holistic doctor, which looked similar. 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.”
Rodgers also told O’Connor that he would not have gotten vaccinated even if he had to deal with a local mandate such as the one that kept Kyrie Irving from playing for the Brooklyn Nets in New York.
Per ESPN, the book will also include a look at the situation between Rodgers and ESPN NFL insider Adam Schefter, which boiled over with a text that Schefter sent to him attempting to confirm his trade to the New York Jets. “Lose my number. Good try tho,” responded Rodgers, in a text that the ESPN reporter confirmed. When asked about the text drama, Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst reportedly told people “At least Adam got a response from him.”
Awful Announcing interviewed O’Connor in March where he discussed more details about the book, why he decided to focus on Rodgers instead of LeBron James, and how much contact the quarterback has with his family.
About Sean Keeley
Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.