Aaron Rodgers, maybe essentially the most gifted N.F.L. quarterback of his technology, spent every week final month in Costa Rica with a handful of fellow professional soccer gamers searching for transformation.
At a mountain retreat with views of the Pacific Ocean, they drank a psychedelic brew underneath the watchful eyes of a Yawanawa shaman and a documentary movie crew.
Quickly a information flash from again house — after which one other — pierced the vibe. First, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the impartial candidate for president, mentioned that he was contemplating making Mr. Rodgers his working mate, a partnership that didn’t in the end materialize.
The subsequent day, CNN reported that Mr. Rodgers had prompt in 2013 that the bloodbath of 20 youngsters at Sandy Hook Elementary College in Newtown, Conn., was a hoax or an inside authorities job. Mr. Rodgers responded on social media, saying that he had “by no means been of the opinion that the occasions didn’t happen.”
These aren’t the circumstances through which you anticipate finding an N.F.L. champion — sipping the brew, ayahuasca, in Central America whereas flirting with a run for vp and batting away accusations of conspiracy mongering. It’s actually not what the crew’s followers have been imagining when Mr. Rodgers arrived final 12 months because the would-be savior of the moribund Jets.
Soccer followers usually need low-complexity heroism from their standout gamers, and in some ways they get that from Mr. Rodgers: He led the Inexperienced Bay Packers to a Tremendous Bowl victory and has been named league M.V.P. 4 occasions. He has had a string of well-known girlfriends (the previous racecar driver Danica Patrick and the actresses Olivia Munn and Shailene Woodley) and endorsement offers with mainstream-American manufacturers, like State Farm Insurance coverage.
Beneath regular circumstances, a star quarterback resurrecting an iconic franchise within the nation’s greatest media market can be simply the form of story line that has helped make the N.F.L. the most important league in American sports activities.
However since becoming a member of the Jets, Mr. Rodgers has largely distinguished himself by supercharging a bewildering off-field persona as an anti-establishment ideologue. If, at age 40, he’s among the many most well-known stars in American soccer, he may be essentially the most eccentric.
On podcasts each standard and obscure, Mr. Rodgers trumpets Mr. Kennedy’s candidacy, rails towards the Covid-19 vaccine and extols the virtues of psychedelic experiences. He has vilified celebrities and urged listeners to query the motives of those that management the federal government and media, tossing round his suspicion that the ruling institution is in cahoots with “Massive Pharma.”
“We now have a captured media system, we’ve a captured medication system, we’ve a captured schooling system,” he just lately advised the commentator Joe Rogan on “The Joe Rogan Expertise,” the most well-liked podcast on Spotify.
Simply this week, Mr. Rodgers’s arrival for the Jets’ first voluntary offseason exercises despatched followers into spasms of glee. However the subsequent day, “Aaron Rodgers” was trending on social media for different causes: A video through which he shared a principle that the federal government had manufactured the H.I.V. epidemic had gone viral.
“The blueprint, the sport plan was made within the ’80s,” he mentioned. “Create a pandemic, you realize, with a virus that’s going wild.”
Outwardly, the Jets give no indication that his off-field endeavors are making a headache, and a spokesman declined to remark. For them, Mr. Rodgers represents the crew’s hope for achievement, even after he ruptured his Achilles’ tendon simply 4 performs into his first sport final fall and sat out the entire season.
“We’re type of centered on soccer,” Woody Johnson, the Jets proprietor, mentioned on the N.F.L.’s annual assembly of homeowners and league executives in Orlando, Fla., final month. “It’s soccer, soccer, soccer.”
Followers will tolerate a certain quantity of surprising conduct — however they’ve limits, particularly when their stars turn out to be the topic of ridicule from rival followers and TV personalities.
A minimum of some Jets followers want Mr. Rodgers would simply shut up and play.
John Marchese, who lives in Florham Park, N.J., wonders if he may be establishing a post-N.F.L. political profession. “Being extraordinarily vocal on divisive points is a technique to try this,” he mentioned. “However as a soccer fan, I simply need to concentrate on soccer, and I need Aaron Rodgers to concentrate on soccer since his expertise is plain.”
But Mr. Rodgers, who didn’t reply to a request for remark, more and more does the alternative. Final week, his fourth prolonged audio interview in simply over two months was aired (this, along with his common appearances on “The Pat McAfee Present,” a podcast licensed to ESPN).
His newer avocation is collaborating in “plant medication” ceremonies — Mr. Rodgers bristles at using the time period “medicine” to explain psychedelic substances taken with the intent of getting emotional and religious experiences. He credit ayahuasca, which he refers to by a nickname, “grandmother,” for serving to him overcome fears that he traces again to the Nineteen Nineties.
“I had this irrational worry of dying that type of caught with me for a very long time,” he mentioned on “I Can Fly,” a podcast. “And on this first ceremony, grandmother simply took it away.”
His use of ayahuasca gained’t maintain him off the sector: It’s not banned underneath the N.F.L.’s collective bargaining settlement with the gamers’ union.
To some observers, Mr. Rodgers’s conduct is head-scratching. “Athletes are likely to go from well-known to notorious by chance, not by alternative, and quarterbacks specifically are as cautious with their speech and public actions as any place in any sport,” mentioned Dan Le Batard, a podcast host. “I don’t assume we’ve ever heard a beginning professional quarterback espouse something like conspiracy theories, by no means thoughts selecting that route after having arrived on the gold mine of lastly being secure sufficient to promote us State Farm insurance coverage on tv.”
‘Jeopardy’ and U.F.O.s
For {most professional} athletes, specializing in their sport is a full-time occupation. Mr. Rodgers, who’s paid greater than $35 million a 12 months, has intense exterior passions.
He loves the tv present “The Workplace” and appeared as himself in a 2013 episode. He has watched “Jeopardy!” since he was a toddler and in 2021 auditioned to turn out to be its host. He skilled for his two-week on-air stint by watching greater than 50 episodes of the present, he mentioned in an Instagram video.
No different visitor host matched his preparation, mentioned Mike Richards, the present’s govt producer on the time. “That’s why he’s Aaron Rodgers,” Mr. Richards mentioned.
The one particular request he made to producers was to tour the set of “Wheel of Fortune.”
Mr. Rodgers mentioned he solves a couple of dozen crossword puzzles every week, partly to stave off the affect of head accidents. “I’ve had various concussions, and you are concerned about your future mind features,” he mentioned in a March 2020 podcast.
At his fortieth party in December in New York, his cake featured a “Jeopardy” board, a desk in homage to “The Workplace” and the motion film character John Wick (whom he dressed as for Halloween) — along with a Jets jersey and a Tremendous Bowl ring.
Not featured was the U.F.O. that he has advised podcasters he noticed in New Jersey a number of years in the past.
Mr. Rodgers grew up in Chico, Calif., taking part in Younger Life, an evangelical ministry, and attending a nondenominational church together with his household. He advised a podcast interviewer that Y2K represented a major supply of tension. “There was lots of people in our sphere who thought that the world was going to finish in 2000,” he mentioned.
Even after the world didn’t finish, Mr. Rodgers mentioned he suffered from fear for years till he discovered ayahuasca.
Mr. Rodgers can be an avid reader. He has hosted a e book membership for Mr. McAfee, the podcast host who’s a former N.F.L. punter. It included books like “Be Right here Now,” by Ram Dass, and Jon Krakauer’s “The place Males Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman.”
Dominique Dafney, a former tight finish with the Packers, recalled asking Mr. Rodgers for a e book advice. The subsequent day the quarterback he grew up watching on T.V. introduced him an inscribed copy of “The Alchemist,” a fable by Paulo Coelho about pursuing your desires.
Mr. Dafney mentioned that Mr. Rodgers had been the Packers’ undisputed chief, and teammates have been each loyal and accepting of all types of views, together with his.
“The fellows who spent essentially the most time with him converse extremely of him, and it’s not by chance,” Mr. Dafney mentioned. “He needs you to shine and get your alternatives. His factor was, like that e book, take pleasure in discovering that path and who you might be as an individual.”
However Mr. Rodgers has additionally gone out of his technique to choose fights with public figures, maligning Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s former high physician for infectious illnesses, and George Soros, the billionaire funder of liberal causes. Final October, Mr. Rodgers publicly challenged the Chiefs tight finish Travis Kelce — the star of a drug firm business whom Mr. Rodgers refers to as “Mr. Pfizer” — to a debate in regards to the security of Covid-19 vaccines.
And in January, on the McAfee podcast, he casually prompt with out proof that the tv host Jimmy Kimmel had ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted intercourse offender.
The blowback was swift. Mr. Kimmel tweeted that Mr. Rodgers slot in with “soft-brained wackos” and adopted up with a monologue stating that Mr. Rodgers “thinks he is aware of what the federal government is as much as as a result of he’s a quarterback doing analysis on YouTube and listening to podcasts.”
Mr. Kimmel declined to remark.
Of all Mr. Rodgers’s outspoken beliefs, his mistrust of vaccines has drawn essentially the most consideration.
In the summertime of 2021, Mr. Rodgers reported to coaching camp in Inexperienced Bay and was requested whether or not he was vaccinated. “Yeah, I’ve been immunized,” he advised reporters.
Three months later, Mr. Rodgers contracted the virus and acknowledged that he had not been vaccinated. As an alternative, he mentioned he had undergone another immunization course of that the league didn’t approve.
The N.F.L. fined him, prompting Mr. Rodgers to lash out.
“I’m not some form of anti-vax, flat-earther,” Mr. Rodgers mentioned on “The Pat McAfee Present.” “I consider strongly in bodily autonomy and the power to make selections in your physique, to not should acquiesce to some form of woke tradition or crazed people who say you must do one thing.”
Greater than two years later, Mr. Rodgers was nonetheless miffed. “I used to be watching the playoff sport the opposite day and it mentioned, ‘N.F.L. soccer, delivered to you by Pfizer.’ I used to be like, yeah, I knew that,” he advised Mr. Rogan in February.
Given Mr. Rodgers’s attain, his rhetoric in regards to the Covid-19 vaccine can go away a complete group susceptible, mentioned Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia College Mailman College of Public Well being.
“People can have their very own private beliefs, however in addition they have to consider the general public once they have a platform as he does,” she mentioned. “Particular person selections can have main societal penalties.”
Although State Farm declined to increase its 12-year companion take care of Mr. Rodgers in 2023, an organization spokesman mentioned, “This choice was not primarily based on the non-public views of Mr. Rodgers.”
Mr. Rodgers’s skepticism dates again to highschool when he studied the life and dying of John F. Kennedy, he defined this winter on “Look Into It with Eddie Bravo,” a podcast hosted by a self-proclaimed conspiracy theorist. It didn’t make sense to Mr. Rodgers that Lee Harvey Oswald was the only murderer of the president, and it “acquired me into questioning issues,” he mentioned.
“‘Conspiracy’ is a time period which will get slighted,” Mr. Rodgers mentioned. “Conspiracy theories have been proper about a variety of issues within the final couple of years.”
It’s unclear what number of gamers are sympathetic to Mr. Rodgers’s views. Few gamers categorical these sorts of opinions publicly. Those that do typically pivot again towards silence.
In 2015, the New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady left a MAGA hat in his locker and voiced his help for Donald Trump. When reporters grilled him, Mr. Brady ditched the hat and later deflected questions on Mr. Trump.
Mr. Rodgers has defended himself for taking a distinct path.
“You stand courageously for what you consider in, or the alternative aspect of that’s both saying nothing or being a coward,” Mr. Rodgers advised Mr. Rogan. “I’m going to proceed speaking about these items, as a result of it’s essential to me.”
Extraordinary expertise
Many followers say that their favourite groups are cursed, however the Jets trustworthy have a legit declare. The crew has the doubtful distinction of proudly owning the longest playoff drought in main league sports activities. Their solely look within the Tremendous Bowl was in 1969, earlier than males walked on the moon.
All of which makes it unsurprising that the Jets, a sports activities radio laughingstock, have been extra centered on Mr. Rodgers’s distinctive skills than his politics.
Few N.F.L. gamers are nonetheless in uniform at 40, however apart from final season’s damage, Mr. Rodgers has been sturdy, with extra passing yards and touchdowns than any energetic quarterback.
New York gamers and followers had upbeat expectations for Mr. Rodgers’s transfer to the large metropolis, and he initially embraced his new hometown with gusto.
At Knicks and Rangers playoff video games final 12 months, he was cheered when he appeared on the jumbotron at Madison Sq. Backyard. He attended the Tony Awards. He went to a Taylor Swift live performance at MetLife Stadium.
However his desires of main the Jets to a Tremendous Bowl title have been not less than quickly derailed final September when he needed to be helped off the sector.
Specialists mentioned returning shortly from an Achilles’ tear was a protracted shot. Mr. Rodgers advised Mr. Rogan he tried to hasten his restoration with hyperbaric chamber remedy, regenerative stem-cell remedies and bone broth slurped to spice up collagen.
‘The place the hope begins’
Amid his eight-hour each day rehab periods, Mr. Rodgers started speaking with Mr. Kennedy about his presidential marketing campaign. The candidate’s philosophy, significantly on the Covid vaccine, aligns together with his personal.
“If there’s a manner that R.F.Okay. may get elected, to me, that’s the place the hope begins,” Mr. Rodgers advised Mr. Rogan this winter.
Lower than two months later, Mr. Kennedy named him as a doable vice-presidential companion, jolting Jets followers who feared they’d mistakenly positioned their hopes on a participant who was growing old, injured and a would-be politician.
A few of these on the Costa Rican retreat have been conscious of the information however largely ignored the distractions, mentioned Jeramy Poyer, the brother of the Miami Dolphins security Jordan Poyer.
There, Mr. Rodgers and his fellow searchers spent two hours in an airless tepee that was heated to greater than 100 levels to induce emotions of enlightenment.
The final night time, in keeping with New York Occasions interviews with two contributors and a podcast look by Mr. Rodgers, they gathered in a big room overlooking the pure foliage of the retreat to drink ayahuasca, which is supposed to deliver on euphoria, hallucinations and a processing of despair and trauma that may result in long-term peace.
Adrian Colbert, a security for the Bears, mentioned the ceremonies helped him perceive that “emotional therapeutic is seemed down upon, particularly for males. However vulnerability is energy.” He added, “I felt my coronary heart explode, and I felt a lot love. I couldn’t assist however cry.”
Some folks have been enjoying bongos and guitar because the group ventured into the grass and gazed on the stars. “I simply fell in love with the Yawanawa, the drugs they served,” Mr. Rodgers mentioned on the “I Can Fly” podcast.
Mr. Poyer mentioned that Mr. Rodgers advised him it was “top-of-the-line nights of his life.”
