Throughout his career, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has made a habit of taking real or perceived slights and turning them into fuel that he’s used to his advantage.
It may seem harder and harder to come up with slights when you’ve won a Super Bowl and spent years as one of the top quarterbacks in the league, but Rodgers said he’s found a way to do it. He said during his weekly radio show on ESPN Wisconsin that he doesn’t think he’s “losing my edge at all” and referred to his decision to fake a spike and throw a pass to wide receiver Davante Adams just before the winning touchdown in Miami while discussing the constant presence of criticism he can use as fodder.
“I think as far as the criticism goes, I think that’s where some of the comedy comes in to me,” Rodgers said, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “You have to find humor in it. Because I get criticized for holding the ball too long and not taking risks, right? So then there’s the risk vs. interception. Then I fake a spike and throw it to Davante and I get criticized for taking risks. So that’s why I said earlier that critics are always going to win as far as getting their criticism out there, because they can make up new things to criticize whenever they want and use stats or feelings or whatever to fit the specific thing they are criticizing. I’m going to play the way I play. It’s been pretty successful around here. I’m going to hold onto the ball when I feel like I can, and get out when I feel like I can as well. But I don’t worry too much about the critics. It’s talking out of both sides of their mouth. And that’s why the stuff doesn’t bother me.”
We’re not sure who’s criticizing Rodgers for the fake spike, which seemed like a pretty savvy read of a defense playing off of Adams without expecting a play, but it seems someone, somewhere filed some that Rodgers has filed away. That may not bother him, but whatever it does for him certainly seems to be working.
