Aaron Rodgers’s Hardest Catch: His Jokes
Packers Star Confounds Foes With His Arm—And Friends With His Odd Sense of Humor
And then there are his jokes.
The only time Rodgers isn’t on the same page with his teammates is when he is telling jokes. Rodgers’s attempts at humor are so layered and dry, those who know him say, that the only thing more common than a playbook in the Packers’ locker room is the clueless comment, Is he joking?
“His jokes are what we call ‘Algebra 2,’ ” said Daryn Colledge, a Miami Dolphins offensive lineman and former Packers teammate. “I think a lot of people don’t get it.”
Rodgers’s sense of humor, though inscrutable, serves as a calming influence in Green Bay. After a 1-2 start this season, Rodgers famously told fans to “R-E-L-A-X”—a statement later backed up by the Packers’ 12-4 final record. In the locker room, Rodgers uses quips and stunts to tell his teammates the same. The comedic results are mixed.
Scenes like the following are common in Green Bay. Last week in a team meeting, Rodgers displayed a photo, randomly, of a figure in American history and asked rookie center Corey Linsley to identify him. There was no apparent purpose to this, but Linsley correctly identified John F. Kennedy.
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“I don’t know,” Linsley said. “Frederick?”
Half the room giggled. Half was confused. It was, teammates agree, kind of weird. (Linsley clarified that he is now aware of Kennedy’s middle name, Fitzgerald.)
Rodgers, right, celebrating a touchdown with backup Matt Flynn against the Chicago Bears in September. Associated Press 
Then there is Rodgers’s habit of quoting “The Princess Bride.” While the 1987 romantic comedy is widely considered a classic, the allusions are lost on Rodgers’s 20-something teammates. (At 31, Rodgers is older than all but three guys on the team.) His favorite line to blurt out, he said, is from the character Vizzini: “Let me put it this way. Have you ever heard of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates? Morons.”
“They probably don’t get the reference, no,” Rodgers said.
“He does make jokes that fall on deaf ears,” said fullback John Kuhn. “But that’s what happens when you make a lot of jokes.”
Teammates say that Rodgers, during pregame walk-throughs, will stare at players with an angry look until the player expresses concern. Then Rodgers will laugh.
“It takes a really long time to figure it out,” Linsley said of Rodgers’s humor.
Rodgers’s jokes, teammates say, are almost entirely for his own entertainment. To them, that suggests a confidence that puts them at ease. “He’s about as relaxed and calm in this locker room as you can get,” said Packers offensive tackle Bryan Bulaga. “His demeanor has an effect on us. There’s never any panic in this locker room. Everything about him says, ‘Take a breather; we are going to be all right.’ ”
There is anxiety in the Green Bay locker room, but it is from players dreading falling victim to one of Rodgers’s quips.
During midweek meetings, in between breakdowns of offensive plays, Rodgers will award a “Man of the Week” award, in which he scours Google Images for less-than-flattering photos of teammates. He found one of tight end Andrew Quarless while he played at Penn State and blasted it on the video board in the meeting room. “He spends a lot of time on the Internet, trying to find anything,” Quarless said.
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Rodgers throwing a touchdown against the Detroit Lions in December. Associated Press
Nothing, Bulaga said, compares with the oddness of the Saturday meetings that Rodgers runs with the offense.
“He has these little gigs every Saturday, he has 10 to 15 minutes to do whatever he wants,” Bulaga said. That means Rodgers focuses on football and addressing the entire offense on what needs to be done—until he starts getting weird. In one meeting this season, Rodgers randomly began to show what he called great commercials of the year. Bulaga knew what was coming, even if no one else did. It was all a setup to eventually show Bulaga’s commercial for cellphones featuring coach Mike McCarthy.
“There is no self-doubt in [Rodgers],” Bulaga said.
Rodgers’s eccentric sense of humor can be effective on opponents, too. Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive lineman Michael Johnson said that Rodgers’s on-field demeanor is so biting and confusing that he compared him with Clive Owen’s mysterious character in the caper movie “Inside Man.”
Buccaneers linebacker Mason Foster said that Rodgers is likely to throw for a big play, then calmly walk by you and ask how your alma mater is doing.
“He went to Cal, so he just walks up and asks me how Washington is doing,” Foster said. “In between plays.”
