Are all great NFL quarterbacks strange?
Peter Bukowski of Locked On Packers has some knowledge on the topic, spending years covering Aaron Rodgers with the Green Bay Packers. Recently, joined Jessica Kleinschmidt on the Short and to the Point podcast this week to discuss this very topic.
When asked about Aaron Rodgers being seen as a “normal guy” early in his career compared to where things ended up in the past couple of years, Bukowski had an interesting read on the situation.
“I think fame, power, money, all that stuff. Any person who reaches that level of status and stays a relatively normal person is an outlier. Look at some of the most famous quarterbacks we have. Tom Brady won’t eat raspberries, he won’t eat strawberries. He’s kind of a weirdo. Russell Wilson is a certified weirdo. Even people in the NFL are making fun of what a weird dude that guy is. They’re not bad people, just kind of weird. That’s part of what makes them great. They have this drive, this tunnel vision, this singlemindedness that allows them to be great.”
While many great quarterbacks may be seen as strange, Bukowski says even within that uniqueness, there are layers.
“A lot of Packers fans were excited about Aaron Rodgers early on. He had that arrogant mentality that every fanbase loves when things are going well, ‘he’s kind of a jerk, but he’s our jerk, he makes you guys mad.’ It’s one thing to be a peacetime general when everything is going well, that is a certain kind of personality, but are you a wartime general? When the chips are down, what kind of player, what kind of leader, what kind of person are you? I don’t think Aaron Rodgers was ever a wartime general. Tom Brady was a big-time wartime general, for sure.”
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