Tuesday, November 19, 2013

A requiem for Aaron Rodgers' shoulder... or collarbone, or whatever...

Aaron Rodgers part I:  Make the pain go away… 

            Everything was set up so god-damned perfectly.  The Green Bay Packers were playing the Chicago Bears on Monday Night Football at Lambeau Field.  Well, not quite perfectly as Jay Cutler was out with a “Groin” Injury(he pulled it once and it felt so good he pulled it again.  Sorry, shitty old joke alert) and I like it when the Packers beat the Bears fair and square and get to rub it in Jay Cutler’s whiny, little face and so there’s no crying from south of the border(that’s a reference to Illinois, where Chicago is, for all those who are geographically challenged; or who grew up on the West Coast because for some fucking reason the people out there were taught NOTHING of America’s Heartland and if their planes didn’t always land in the right places,  they wouldn’t find fucking anything ever).  But still, it was pretty awesome since Jay Cutler would’ve just laid a turd anyhow like he had in every game since the Packers beat the Bears in the 2010 NFC Championship game, which, of course, Jay Cutler got hurt in.  Which, naturally, happens every time he starts to stink up the joint, but nevertheless, this is not about how much I hate Jay Cutler(who texted his marriage proposal to his future wife and then Fed-exed the ring to her, which she didn’t even care to open right away, even though he could have fucking asked her in person since she was just at his house earlier that day) but about how much I love Aaron Rodgers(which, consequently, is not as much as my girlfriend loves Aaron Rodgers.  I would be a little pissed about this if he wasn’t so tall and fucking good-looking and funny and talented and, oh yeah, the quarterback for the GREEN BAY FUCKING PACKERS!  Needless to say, its almost a point of pride for me that my girlfriend wants to fuck Aaron Rodgers, yeah, almost…). 

So, the stage was set, and man, was I excited all day.  I had to work at six o’clock that morning and started my countdown immediately; only eleven and a half hours til kickoff!  Yes, for all of those keeping score, that means I live on the West Coast, in Portland of all fucking places, but I won’t go into that here…  All day I annoyed the shit out of my co-workers with my half-hour announcements; only eight hours til kickoff!  All day I pined to be at Lambeau cooking brats and drinking beers with the Packers faithful; only five hours til kickoff!  I told stories of the Packers-Bears game I got to go to in 1996, the magical season of Brett Favre’s Super Bowl win, and how it was in December and it was fucking nine hundred below(or actually 15 degrees above zero, fahrenheit, but that’s still fucking cold when you’re sitting on a metal bench and the only things to keep you warm being your love of Packers football, the excitement of actually being able to be at a game and the body heat emanating off the fat guy next to you who is taking up half your seat); only one hour til kickoff!  And then, finally, as I was about to cum in my pants, it started!  And Aaron Rodgers(I don’t know why but I feel like I have to call him by his full name almost every time.  It feels weird not to since I don’t know him personally and he’s so famous and deity-like) marched us right down the field against those shitty Bears and it was awesome.  But then, all of the sudden, on what initially looked like a routine sack, our worst fears were realized with the one thing that could derail this magical season…  Aaron Rodgers was hurt…  At first, we didn’t think much of it, figuring he would be back in on the next drive.  But it kept looking worse and worse until finally, he jogged to the locker room.  I was watching the game with my girlfriend, and we just kinda looked at each other, not really knowing how to react.  Here was the man who kept this team together, and winning despite the injuries to what seems like EVERY other fucking major contributor on the team, at some point in this season.  I’m talking about Bryan Bulaga, Morgan Burnett, Clay Matthews(TWICE), Nick Perry, Randall Cobb, James Jones, Dujuan Harris, James Starks, Jermichael Finley, Brad Jones, Eddie Lacy, Casey Hayward; who have all missed games this season.  And, despite all of this, the Packers just reeled off four wins in a row, and barely missed the one before that.  He just kept making all the pain go away.  Aaron Rodgers was kicking ass and fucking taking names.  It didn’t matter who was on the field with him, you just always felt that Aaron(I’m going to try to stop referring to him by his full name all the time as I’m sure it’s pretty fucking annoying; but ooohh, it kinda just gave me shivers, it’s weird but I’ll give it a shot) was going to find them and get them the ball and somehow win every game.  But, suddenly, that was all gone.  When Rodgers jogged off the field, our attention, collectively as a state I’m sure, turned immediately from the game to Aaron Rodgers’ health.  It was all we could think about.  There was still a game happening and it was still close, so, we got behind the guys and cheered for them and cheered a ton for Eddie Lacy, who was just a beast from start to finish; but it wasn’t the same.  The Packers went on to, predictably, lose the game, but it didn’t hurt the way it normally would.  And it wasn’t until the next day, just like with the players, when the real pain set in…

Like many of the Green and Gold faithful, I was worried about Aaron and when he would get back, scared about the implications of this injury for our season and whether we could still make the playoffs and on and on.  There was no immediate information available on his collarbone and that made us nervous.  Some began to panic and, almost, but not quite, rightfully so.  The scariest part of any ordeal is not knowing.  Once, we found out it was a fractured clavicle or whatever, we could start to plan ahead and try to move on.  But again, this wasn’t just another injury, this was THE injury.  The one we might not be able to overcome.  It was a very trying couple of days.  I, and I know I’m not the only one, began looking at the schedule trying to figure out that, ok, if we can just win one or two of the games without Aaron maybe we can still make the playoffs as long as he’s back by December to win out, and ultimately, beat the Bears at Soldier Field.  A thousand different scenarios went through my, and Packers Nation’s, head.  But then Wednesday rolled around something changed for me.  A certain, inexplicable calm came about me.  I had been too wrapped up in the negative and completely lost perspective on the positive.  These are the Green Bay Packers, my team(Yes, I am a stockholder), the winningest and most storied franchise in the NFL, and it’s my job, as a lifelong fan, to be supportive and positve.  And, besides, the season is only half over.  There’s no need to lose any hope, or sleep, yet… That’s when a few things became very clear to me: 

1.     We have Mike McCarthy.  And if anyone can get this team, and more importantly Seneca Wallace and Scott Tolzien(and now Matt Flynn, once again), ready for this tough challenge, it’s him.
2.     Seneca Wallace has been a quarterback in the NFL for a long time so he definitely has quite a bit of talent and the Packers believed in him enough to pick him up.  I trust that the Packers personnel department knows exactly what they are doing and a thousand times more than me, who am I to doubt them.  Scott Tolzien led the Badgers to a Rose Bowl, so he must know a thing or two about football.  And Matt Flynn played a good game once, and made a fuck ton of money off the strength of that one game.
3.     If, no, when the Packers overcome this enormous challenge, there will be nothing that they cannot overcome and will definitely win the Super Bowl come February.
4.     (I try to have all my lists have four points, since that was, and in my mind still is,  Favre’s number and the best number EVER) Aaron Rodgers has done so much for this franchise that it’s unfair for me to be the slightest bit angry or whatever about any of this.  I feel incredibly lucky to have him on our side(praise be to the Lord Almighty we don’t have to play against him) and will never forget that…


Aaron Rodgers part II:  How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways…

            To expound upon point Favre, I mean four, Aaron Rodgers had the impossible task of taking over for the most famous, most popular, most exciting and most beloved player, not only in Green Bay, but in the ENTIRE FUCKING NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE.  He was set up almost surely to fail, as no one could possibly fill those enormous shoes(and there’s some masseuses in New York who would say that’s not the only enormous, um, thing…).  And, as a side note, if you didn’t already know(and how would you, you don’t know me.  And I’m not saying that in a Jerry Springer kind of “You Don’t Know Me” way, but in a normal, as we have never fucking met ever kind of way), Brett Favre is, BY FAR, my favorite player to ever play the great game of football.  He is my ultimate hero.  He is my childhood.  There is no one on Earth that I idolize more than Brett Favre.  And I was devastated to see him leave the Green Bay Packers, so, I, perhaps more than most, was very critical of Rodgers.  But that has all changed.  Aaron Rodgers has not only met and shouldered the unbearable expectations unfairly heaved upon him; he has surpassed them.  No one could have imagined(except Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy, of course) that Rodgers would make Packers fans the luckiest fans in the world in that we have had, during my lifetime, not one, but two, back-to-back even, once-in-a-generation type players leading the Green Bay Packers.  I love Aaron Rodgers, I do, and I am no longer afraid to say it.  It doesn’t mean that I love Brett Favre any less, as I once thought it would; it only means that I have more love to give and I can indeed love two men in my lifetime.  Like a widower(or Cher in that terrible excuse for a song “Believe” that was fucking everywhere in 1998.  And if you don’t remember it, then thank God, as its only marginally better than “Who Dunnit?” by Genesis, whom I love, but is, by far, the worst fucking song I’ve ever heard and is like the fucking chicken pox, or its big brother herpes, once its in your system, its there forever and keeps popping up at the wrong moments, like, “Come on herpes, give me a break.  I’m trying to nail this drunk chick before she sobers up and sees I’m not the hot guy she was dancing with earlier, as he left with a hotter girl with lower self-esteem, and I swooped in for the easy pickings, but she’s clearly out of my league even still.”  Fucking herpes, that shits for life.  And, by the way, since we’re on the topic, if you are going to get herpes, please do it in a big city because getting herpes in a small town sucks a hairy, sweaty nutsack, which is super fucking gross, if you didn’t know.  I mean, not that I’ve ever done it, I haven’t I swear,  I’m not a crack head or anything, but even just thought of it, I mean, just, eww,  fucking eww.  Even straight ladies and gay dudes can’t like doing that, I would imagine.  Of course, there are always some freaks out there and I’m sure you could find them on Craigslist if, for some reason, you wanted your hairy, sweaty nutsack sucked…  But anyways, in the tiny town that I grew up in, only three thousand people, a girl I went to High School with found out she had herpes.  By the end of the week everyone in town knew about it and she was cast off like a leper from society.  I almost felt bad, but she did sex up some nasty dudes, so she kind of had it coming.  So, fuck it, I’m not the terrible person, she is), I am finding life and love once again. 

            Rodgers is, in many ways, the antithesis to Brett Favre.  The yin for his yang(not a cock reference, by the way).  And in this regard, I initially thought he was perhaps nothing more than a rebound fuck.  He was everything Brett wasn’t and almost nothing that Brett was, it seemed; besides an amazing quarterback playing for the greatest team in the whole world:  the Green Bay Packers.  I was so hurt by Brett leaving us, as many were, and needed someone different to pick up the pieces of my shattered life.  That was Aaron.  But seeing as we’re going on six years together, I must finally commit to this relationship and admit to myself what it really is.  And the more I watch Aaron Rodgers play, the more of Brett I see in him.  It’s the courage, both in the pocket and with his throws down the field.  It’s the poise.  When the biggest moments are upon him,  he’s not fazed and he doesn’t falter.  But most of all, it’s the ability to put not just an entire team, but the entire state of Wisconsin and the many, many Packers fans around the world, upon his shoulders and WIN.  Sustained success in the NFL is not an easy task, by any means.  As a matter of fact, its fucking hard as shit.  And I am not saying that these two men are solely responsible for all the past, present and future success of the Green Bay Packers, as there are countless other people(Mike Holmgren, Ron Wolf, Ted Thompson, Mike McCarthy and the entire staffs of these men plus all the players that have come(or gone to Minnesota), etc. etc.)responsible as well.  But if the past couple weeks without Aaron Rodgers, as we NEVER had to go without Brett Favre for more than a couple of quarters(297 starts in a fucking row!  Counting those other teams he played for, but still, goddamn it, that is unbelievably fucking amazing…), has taught us anything, we should be thanking God(and Ted Thompson) for number 12.  We’ve seen where we’d be without him, and I just don’t think I could take the heartbreak.  No Packers fan wants to revisit the 70’s and 80’s.  We love you Aaron; just stay the fuck away from our girlfriends…  You handsome devil, you…

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