For fans of the Green Bay Packers from 2005 to 2008, it was reasonable to wonder if their former first-round pick and backup quarterback Aaron Rodgers was ever going to get the chance to start, but in 2008, Packers legend Brett Favre retired, unretired, and got traded to the Jets, giving Rodgers the chance to shine. And shine he has. Two years later, Rodgers led the Packers to another Super Bowl win and was named that game’s MVP.
Rodgers also won the league MVP the following year and has continued to dominate week after week on the field and in life. Because you guys, he’s dating a member of the X-Men and cashing checks from endorsement deals left and right. But while these reasons all demonstrate why his Fathead is up on the walls of our soul, there is much more to Aaron Rodgers than being Mr. Olivia Munn and leading the Pack to victory on Sundays. So with that said, go (double)check out these facts about the man who FamousBirthdays.com calls the second most famous person named Aaron alive today besides some 16-year-old who is good at YouTube. Because, Good at YouTube > Great at Life… I guess.
He founded a record label.
If you had been sitting on the sidelines for three years and finally got your chance to start for an NFL team, what’s the first thing you would do? If you’re Aaron Rodgers, you start your own music label. In 2009, Rodgers founded Suspended Sunrise Recordings with his friend Ryan Zachary and signed their first band, The Make, in 2011.
He began his college football career at a community college.
Rodgers may be well known for his stellar play at the University of California, Berkeley, but he didn’t start his college career there. Despite his exemplary high school play, Rodgers was not offered a single scholarship to an NCAA school. Instead, Rodgers chose to attend Butte Community College, 80 miles north of Sacramento. After a great first season, he was offered a scholarship to Cal, where he played two years before entering the draft. Still, he hasn’t forgotten where he came from.
He should have lost a year’s salary in a Twitter “bet.”
In 2013, Milwaukee Brewers star Ryan Braun had failed a test for performance enhancing drugs and was facing suspension. Rodgers took to Twitter to defend his fellow Wisconsin sports celebrity pal, claiming the truth would win out and his friend would be vindicated. Well, Twitter user Todd Sutton took him to task on it and basically questioned whether or not Rodgers really believed that Braun was, in fact, telling the truth.
“I’d put my salary next year on it,” he replied.
Braun would go on to fail another test and accept a suspension and Rodgers had to face up to an unfortunate reality… sorta. He didn’t pay out his multi-million dollar salary and the whole thing basically went away.
He used to play for the Vikings.
Granted, it was for the Pleasant Valley High School Vikings in his hometown of Chico, CA. But, they’re the Vikings so, technically, this is true.
He has four times as many touchdowns as he does interceptions.
By the end of the Packers’ game against the Bears last Sunday, Aaron Rodgers had thrown three touchdown passes and didn’t throw a single intercepted pass. Normally, those are pretty good numbers no matter who you are. However, adding these numbers to his already impressive career totals put him in a class by himself. With 229 touchdowns and 57 interceptions, Rodgers is the first NFL quarterback to have four times as many TDs as turnovers. No other quarterback has even three times as many, and he still has a lot of years ahead of him.
He’s been dubbed the “King of Photobombing”
First #Packers captains photo of the season. #GBvsCHI pic.twitter.com/GvZl9rSr8x
— Green Bay Packers (@packers) September 13, 2015
Like nearly everything else Rodgers does on the football field, he takes his photobombing seriously. Since 2006, Rodgers has photobombed every Packers captains’ photo taken (aside from the ones he was taking part in himself). That certainly takes commitment.
