Here’s how far Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers would go to someday become the permanent host of the game show “Jeopardy!”: He’d go clean-shaven to do it.
Just hours before Rodgers’ first episode in a two-week run as guest host was scheduled to air, he said he would like to be considered as a full-time replacement for the late Alex Trebek.
“If [shaving his beard and mustache] was a prereq to get the full-time gig, no problem with that at all. No problem at all,” Rodgers said Monday on The Pat McAfee Show. “I would love to be the host of ‘Jeopardy!’ yes.”
Rodgers did not say when he would like to take a run at the job, though.
His future with the Packers has been the subject of much debate ever since the team picked quarterback Jordan Love in the first round of last year’s draft. Shortly after that, Rodgers admitted that he had lost some control over when his tenure would end with the only NFL team he has ever played for. He said late last season that his future was “a beautiful mystery” and said after the season that he was in the same situation as a lot of players with uncertain futures.
Rodgers is under contract through the 2023 season, but the Packers could gain significant salary-cap space (more than $22 million) if they moved on after this season by trading or releasing him. Rodgers told ESPN last week that there has been nothing to report on any change to his contract.
“I think we’re exactly where we were last year when I made comments after the draft and throughout the season,” Rodgers told McAfee. “I don’t feel like any of that has changed. Even my comments directly after the last game — and we talked about it on this show — some thought or made assumptions based on what I said, but nothing’s really changed. My future is, really, a lot of it is out of my control. That’s why I’ve used the phrase like ‘beautiful mystery,’ because it is quite uncertain which direction things are going to go.”
Rodgers is coming off a season in which he won his third NFL Most Valuable Player award and helped lead the Packers to a 13-3 regular-season mark and a berth in the NFC Championship Game, where they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“All I can do is play my best, and I feel like last year I did do that,” Rodgers said. “That may have thrown a wrench into some timelines that may have been thought about or desired, but ultimately things haven’t really changed on that front. I meant what I said last year about really being at peace with the whole thing, and that hasn’t changed. I feel good about the way I played. Feel good about the way I led. … Everything else is kind of for speculation, and I’m sure there will be plenty of it.
“It doesn’t mean I can’t be honest about how I thought those events would affect my future in Green Bay, and I said what I said last year and it’s still a reality and that really hasn’t changed.”