I have some more respect for Aaron Rodgers today. Maybe he acted like such an ass in GB because he wanted to leave. Who knows? But the whole jersey number thing with leaving 12 retired even though Broadway Joe gave his blessing was a total class move.
“There’s some iconic names that have played here — probably not more iconic than No. 12. And I heard what he said about in retiring his number, but to me, 12 is Broadway Joe.
“I didn’t want to even go down that path, and I’m excited about going back to my college [California] number.”
To contrast, Peyton Manning could’ve done the same thing in Denver. 18 was retired for their first AFL QB Frank Tripuka, and Peyton could have gone down the classy route and used his college number 16. Tripuka also gave his blessings but Manning could have done what Rodgers did, but like the dickhead he is, he took the number anyway. Jerry Rice did the same thing in Seattle, took 80 even though it was retired for Steve Largent. Egotistical dickheads.
Kudos to Rodgers for having class and honoring history.
Broadway Joe Namath was touched watching Aaron Rodgers explain why he did not want to wear Namath’s retired iconic No. 12.
nypost.com