What to make of the Aaron Rodgers experience? Once a beloved dork king who bagged four MVPs and a Super Bowl across 18 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, Rodgers spent much of the last few years turning heel, seemingly with relish. Perhaps the most publicized instance took place during the pandemic, when Rodgers lied about getting the COVID vaccine, only to be found out after contracting the virus mid-season. (He later claimed to be allergic to an ingredient in mRNA vaccines, though never specified exactly what.) Cue public castigation, to which he responded by going on radio shows and podcasts to rail against “woke mobs,†the retort du jour of the famous and assailed. The guy had always possessed a “does his own research†aura, with well-documented passions for ayahuasca, darkness retreats, and conspiracy theories of all stripes. “I’m not, you know, some sort of anti-vaxx, flat-earther,†he once said on The Pat McAfee Show. “I am somebody who’s a critical thinker.â€
There was talk of a fall from grace, even, dare I say, “cancellation.†But modern celebrity is never so linear. As my colleague Will Leitch pointed out over at Intelligencer, the former suzerain of the Cheeseheads has been clearly conducting a well-orchestrated public-relations turnaround since his trade to the New York Jets, presumably meant to ease his transition into the more merciless New York media market and set him up for a better post-NFL career. Against this context, the Jets becoming the latest subject of Hard Knocks feels like another stop in the Rodgers rehabilitation project. And it’s turning out to be a decent one. Think whatever you want about this extremely frustrating man, but he does make for good television. Not even a show as stale as Hard Knocks can hide that fact.
The sports docuseries, produced by HBO and NFL Films, has been around since the turn of the millennium (give or take a few breaks) with little change to its underlying formula. A camera crew shadows a team across preseason training camp, capturing a number of narratives that are packaged into a brief run of episodes. What transpires rarely amounts to anything genuinely insightful, but when it works, Hard Knocks offers viewers a potent mix of slice-of-life footage, workplace drama, mythology building, and hype machine all narrated by Liev Schreiber pulling a David Attenborough (or John Wilson) from a script drowning in puns. For the sports-addled brain, it can be as sweet as a pop song. But the streaming documentary boom has produced a world abundant with competitors like Cheer, 100 Foot Wave, and, yes, even Welcome to Wrexham, many of which are wildly successful in injecting life into a previously staid format. Compared to the character-driven chaos of Drive to Survive, the pastoral feel of Hard Knocks comes across as positively old-fashioned. Plus, in the age of social media and streaming platforms willing to provide more deferential collaborations (see, among others, Netflix’s Quarterback), teams are increasingly resistant to participating in the series.
The Jets ended up agreeing to join Hard Knocks at the final hour, and even then, only begrudgingly. On paper, there’s potential for good material: complicated mentor-mentee dynamics, the specter of Rodgers’s controversies, the long shadow of “Will they ever turn it around?†looming over the franchise. But with leverage on their side, the Jets restricted more of HBO’s access than usual. All of this has resulted in a season that feels mostly inert … except, of course, for whenever Rodgers is on the screen. With a giant pair of hangdog eyes, a trucker ’stache, and more baggage than a commercial airliner, Rodgers’s presence adds a certain frisson. The internal tension of Hard Knocks perseveres: You know the show is never really going to engage with anything truly juicy or difficult, but you watch anyway, curious to see a spark of insight or idiosyncrasy despite the flaws. And in Rodgers, the payoff works. Whether he’s mumbling an explanation of a training exercise adapted from the 1998 movie BASEketball or wandering around training camp with the anomie of a hollowed-out veteran, he possesses an utterly bizarre aura that’s hard to take your eyes off of.
He’s also funny. This shouldn’t be a surprise to those who watched Rodgers’s guest stint on Jeopardy! — or, indeed, anyone who’s followed his career since the early days with the Packers — but there’s a bit of a sitcom character to him on Hard Knocks. His segments feel like what would happen if a camera crew followed a Real Housewives husband off to his workplace. Early in the first episode, Rodgers finds himself being gushed over by a new teammate, the wide receiver Mecole Hardman Jr., who tells Rodgers that he’d been watching him since early childhood. “You’re aging me again,†says Rodgers, affable but distant. “I’m not aging you, I’m showing you how great you is,†replies Hardman. “You’re 25?†“I’m 25.†The future Hall of Famer stares straight ahead, perhaps dying a little inside. He turns 40 this year.
In the fourth episode, after clashing with an opposing linebacker, Rodgers is filmed relaying the altercation back to his teammates on the bench. “I gave him a line that was un-comebackwithable,†he says, emphasizing the delightfully nonexistent word. “I said, ‘I don’t even know who you are!’†He’s beaming, clearly pleased with both his conduct and the cleverness of his story. But his eyes dart back and forth, preserving that distant gaze he’s always had — as if he’s not entirely not present, not entirely sure.
Hard Knocks knows what it needs to do. It’s diligent in documenting Rodgers as a workplace leader: We’re served copious footage of the guy teaching younger players, coaching from the sidelines, sitting in on teamwide bonding sessions. Even as the gaze fans out to pursue other story lines, the camera constantly returns to Rodgers for reaction shots, treating him as a kind of authoritative anchor. But Hard Knocks also knows what it has. Rodgers is a bona fide celebrity, one so prominent that even Liev Schreiber gets starstruck when they meet during the longtime narrator’s first physical appearance on the program. (“That’s the voice of God,†Rodgers tells a staff member, referring to Knocks fans’ colloquial term for the narrator. “Go say hi, don’t be an asshole.â€) Despite its overwhelming compromises, the show is weirdly successful in performing a key function of what docs are supposed to do: emphasize the complicated texture of a human being, including the annoyingly controversial Rodgers. Some space is even set aside for Rodgers’s weirdness to breathe. In the final episode, we’re treated to an extended scene that starts out as a warm reunion between the quarterback and an old college teammate but swiftly progresses into a sequence where Rodgers relives the time they saw a UFO together. “It was like Independence Day when the ships are coming into the atmosphere,†he says to the camera, combining his two great loves beyond football: pop culture and conspiracy theories.
Who knows how long Rodgers will play for the Jets. It’s hard to imagine his tenure will be particularly lengthy; for one thing, he seems so much more mortal than Tom Brady, who retired at 44. But he’s almost certainly destined for a robust post-retirement media career, whatever shape that may take. (It’ll probably be a free-thinking podcast.) But in Hard Knocks, Rodgers has already found his perfect role: reality-television character. It’s the sturdiest possible frame for his television potential; he may be questionable in so many ways, yet his eminent watchability is undeniable. If the Aaron Rodgers Experience is to go full circle, there are worse ways to go about doing it.