Rodgers-LaFleur player-coach relationship is far from faltered
One of the biggest storylines this offseason for Green Bay has been the NFL media narrative of head coach Matt LaFleur & QB Aaron Rodgers’ disagreements on things like joint practices and Rodgers’ use of audibles at the line of scrimmage. Thus making their relationship one of no repairs; which I might add, is completely false. Once again, the mass sports media is making something huge out of something minuscule. People like Colin Cowherd, Dan Patrick, Skip Bayless, and many other sports/NFL personalities have said Rodgers is overrated, a diva, uncoachable, among other things. Any shred of credit Rodgers deserves, he doesn’t get when it comes to Bayless or Cowherd. They are stuck in their ways when evaluating him, unfortunately. That’s how most sports/radio show hosts are though; biased.
The mass sports media isn’t level-headed when it comes to debates/criticisms on sports or athletes because of their analyst’s fandom to certain players and teams. It’s a very unfortunate thing that happens all to often in today’s sports world. I’m here to tell you why you shouldn’t believe anything you see or hear from a major sports personality or outlet.
Rodgers recently spoke about the issues on Packers.com in a one-on-one interview with new analyst & former player John Kuhn. “It’s fake news, John,” Rodgers said. “That’s the media cycle these days; unfortunately, the media — other than obviously yourself; there’s a lack of integrity I think, there’s a rush to put up headlines that are clickbait because the ad revenue is based on the number of visits you get to your website, so instead of putting a title that aptly fits the forthcoming article; it’s more lucrative to post something that’s gonna generate the most commotion so that your site or your story gets the most hits possible & when you’re in a really low news cycle like in June & July when there’s not much football going on, that’s the kind of stuff that comes out. We don’t need to spend any time talking about it because it’s complete ridiculousness.”
He is one hundred percent correct in the idea that negativity sells. It’s sad that’s how mass media works nowadays but it’s the unspoken truth about not only sports media but the media as a whole. They absolutely eat up any and all negative stories that get published.
In another recent interview with Peter King of NBC Sports, head coach Matt LaFleur was also asked about the status of the working relationship between him & Aaron Rodgers. “Every day it’s so much fun, when you have a guy with that level of experience & football acumen that he possesses, you know, we challenge each other and I think he’s going to bring out the best in me and certainly I hope that not only myself but we got Nathanial Hackett — who I can’t speak highly enough about; and Luke Getsy in that quarterback room who are always bringing ideas to the table and how we can make this offense and really help him [Rodgers] be the best he can be, so it’s been a lot of fun; a lot of great conversations but at the same time, we like to have fun in that room as well. To be honest with ya, I don’t really look at it as a boss-coworker relationship; just from a play-caller mentality and somebody that’s worked closely with the quarterbacks, I’ve always viewed that relationship as more of a partnership, because he plays the toughest position in all of the sports in my opinion, and you want to make sure that he’s comfortable with everything you’re doing so that there’s that constant communication that’s going on just to make sure that we’re all on the same page and that he feels comfortable and confident in what we’re doing because I know if he’s confident in what’s going on; the other ten guys in the huddle are going to be pretty confident.”
Judging by both of those interviews, Aaron Rodgers’ & Matt LaFleur’s player-coach relationship; as of now — is completely one hundred percent fine. Time will tell whether or not it stays that way with week one of the regular season right on the horizon (less than a month away). The bottom line here is to not believe every single headline you come across. People create negative news for clicks; this specific narrative that was spun up just happened to involve both Matt LaFleur and Aaron Rodgers as it was the newest story to get a negative connotation put on it. The mass media will always have a way of skewing things to fit their own agenda. It’s up to you to decipher whether or not it’s real. The false narrative that players & coaches aren’t allowed to have even the most minor of disagreements without them being deemed as uncoachable or unteachable is just asinine. Let’s hope this puts a more positive light on how a player-coach relationship; more specifically the one involving Aaron Rodgers and Matt LaFleur, is supposed to be — I think it hopefully should.
#ParkerMoes @ParkerMoes #DHPF @DieHardPackrFan
