It's Thursday.

Thursday.

Are you watching the game tonight?

The hapless jets flipping the script on the once dominant paths is a fun narrative.

Out with the old and with the new. These are the kinds of easy archetypes that tell the story of the NFL each season.

But the player we're about to talk about

has made that kind of typecasting much more complicated.

Aaron Rogers is an NFL player with a rare degree of influence.

He's a Super Bowl champion, a four-time MVP, and one of the most recognizable players in the league.

The Jets have staked their season on his ability to reclaim his status as one of the best

passers-in the game. He's your typical star quarterback here to rescue a long-suffering franchise

and win the hearts of New York City. Except for one thing. When it comes to Aaron Rogers,

wins and losses are rarely the whole story,

because he is also someone who makes people say things like this.

The most disingenuous athlete of my lifetime.

Wild and unhinged conspiracy theories.

Genuine because God gave him the ability to throw a ball, he's smarter than everyone else.

I'm fascinated. throw a ball, he's smarter than everyone else.

I'm fascinated by the ways football reflects the broader culture and how the real world sneaks into the football world, whether the NFL wants it to or not. And that's why I can't get enough

of Aaron Rogers. Rogers has always presented as a curious intellectual, but in the

last few years he's become something of a political provocateur, which leaves the rest of us

just trying to make sense of him.

...