The Feast of Saint Aaron Rodgers, Martyr

Guest columnist and longtime Aaron Rodgers hagiographer Flannery O’Fluffer joins Too Deep Zone to write about the future Hall of Famer on this, the Holiest of All Days. Any resemblance to similar columns at other outlets is purely coincidental.

Heroically, he trudged to the sideline, defeated yet unvanquished. Indeed: unvanquishable. His nose shattered by a cowardly blow from behind by a jealous, desperate foe. His left wrist fractured in three places: not one, not two, not quite proceeding to four, but three.

Most men would be begging an archbishop to perform extreme unction, or a doctor to administer a horse’s dose of laudanum. Yet Aaron Rodgers, with his preternatural determination, soldiered on.

Was this Hercules, grunting through his latest labor? Atlas, unyielding beneath the weight of the cosmos? Wolverine, an exemplar of homo superior, the best at the unpretty things he does?

No, Rodgers became someone else – someone more – as the hometown jeers rained down upon him. These were not mere boos. Listen carefully:

Crucify him! Crucify him!

Yes, what happened to Rodgers on Sunday against the Bills was nothing short of a passion play: the rejection and bludgeoning of a martyr, the sacrifice of a scorned savior.

Blasphemy, you say? Failure to appreciate the weekly treasure of Rodgers’ presence on the field is the true blasphemy. Suggestions that his skills are in decline, that his personality is poisonous or that the offense he helms is ineffective or excruciating to watch are pure heresy. Rodgers made that clear by righteously rebuking his receivers and teammates – each of them a Judas or Doubting Thomas – for their sins after Sunday’s loss. He is not the forgiving sort.

Such transcendent toughness. Such inspirational grit. We bear unworthy witness to this paragon of perseverance. Just taking the field each Sunday is his minor miracle. Rodgers should be canonized a dozen times over. His birthday, December 2nd, should be a secular feast day: Thanksgiving 2.0.

Those who dare to doubt Rodgers’ indefatiguable indomitability need only look back at the 2023 season, when he healed and was ready to return to the field a mere 77 days after Achilles surgery. Achilles, after all, had one weakness. Rodgers does not. Rodgers did not actually take the field in 2023, mind you, because the Jets did not play well enough in his absence to earn his salvation. But Rodgers proclaimed that he could have returned. His words define truth.

Rodgers also played much of 2022 for the Packers with a broken throwing thumb. He broke it in Week 5 of that year. Six losses in seven games later, he deigned to allow his humble emissaries among the insider media to inform mere mortals of the ailment. Excuse-mongering? An example of sketchy information manipulation? THOSE ARE THE WHISPERS OF THE DECEIVER. Rodgers works in mysterious ways. Ours is not to question motives far beyond human understanding.

What’s next for Rodgers? A crown of thorns? A resurrection? The future is unknowable. But blessed are those of us who have opened our minds/hearts/eyes to what may be the final incarnation of Rodgers’ sanctitude. Let the disbelievers cackle and taunt as his bones break and precious blood falls forth from his septum. Let the howling mob of blockheads place their souls in peril with their laughter. They refuse to accept that Rodgers suffers not for money, fame or an insatiable ego, just as sportswriters like me would not dare to pen epistles like this one for mere access to a flattery-obsessed famous person and the career opportunities such access provides. Rodgers suffers for us.

All glory and praise unto him.