The first two Tuesdays of the NFL regular season have come and gone. And Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has made an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show on neither of them.
As noted by Ben Axelrod of AwfulAnnouncing.com, it appears that “Tuesdays with Rodgers” are no more.
Axelrod points out that, during a July appearance on the show, Rodgers was asked whether he’d be appearing during football season.
“We’ll see, yeah, we’ll see,” Rodgers said at the time. “You’re going to have to talk to [Steelers communications director] Burt [Lauten] over there.”
While his spots were always fodder for those of us who are trying to operate a sports media business, it makes sense for Rodgers to not do the show. We made the case, reluctantly, in June for ending the weekly appointment. If the goal is to win football games, there’s no reason to do anything other than his league-mandated press conferences.
In a longer-form discussion, Rodgers gets comfortable. Which prompts him to say things that can become distractions to the overriding objectives.
That happened years ago with former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. He regularly appeared on 93.7 The Fan in Pittsburgh. And he repeatedly said things that created issues for the team. To the point that he eventually stopped doing the segments.
While it’s bad for those of us who have converted Rodgers’s quotes into articles, it’s good for the Steelers — and for Rodgers — to press pause on the possibility of saying anything that could or would create unwanted complications for himself or his team.
And all of this likely means that he’ll be on the show next Tuesday, and every Tuesday thereafter.
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