Washington cornerback Josh Norman hasn’t won a Super Bowl yet, but he knows plenty about rings — “The Lord of the Rings,” to be specific.
Norman was lavish in his praise of Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, in advance of their matchup Sunday.
“That is pretty much Gandalf the White over there,” Norman said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN.com. “That’s a wizard. That’s who he is, to me. Tom Brady is Gandalf the Grey and he’s just an upper class of that. For me, that’s the best of the best, man.
“I think a ‘wizard’ pretty much describes everything there is to know about the type of quarterback [Rodgers is]. ... That’s him and Tom Brady. Of course, you have others. Yeah, I mean, that’s the crème of the crème.”
In case you’re not familiar with the J.R.R. Tolkien books and subsequent movies, Gandalf the Grey is killed and comes back as Gandalf the White.
Rodgers got the reference, and liked the compliment to an extent.
“I love it, man. He’s one of my favorite characters,” Rodgers said. “I appreciate the comparison. Gandalf kind of fell into oblivion and then he came back and he’s the White. He’s a lot more powerful as the White. I don’t really have any gray in the beard yet but I’ll take any compliment from Josh like that, especially a ‘Lord of the Rings’ one. He didn’t say Gimli so I felt pretty good about that.”
Rodgers has played well enough individually lately though the Packers haven’t, and we hope that if he decides to unleash his magical powers, he does so on the field and doesn’t decide to make Florio disappear.
