After starting 6-0, the Green Bay Packers have dropped three-straight games behind Aaron Rodgers’ uncharacteristically poor play. Losing breeds contempt, but that contempt usually resides inside the locker room between players or coaches. In this instance, the vitriol has been spewed toward Rodgers’ girlfriend Olivia Munn. It’s one thing for fans to cook up horrible theories about a quarterback’s girlfriend affecting his play, but it’s an entirely different ordeal when a media member from a respected outlet fans the flames.
ESPN’s Rob Demovsky cited “off-field issues” as one underlying reason for Rodgers struggles. Munn took to Twitter to bemoan Demovsky and the media culture that allows an inherently misogynistic idea like this to permeate through the sports world.
https://twitter.com/oliviamunn/status/667254990440763392
https://twitter.com/oliviamunn/status/667255167083917312
https://twitter.com/oliviamunn/status/667257808069394432
Rodgers’ play will eventually return to an All-Pro level, because he’s one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time. But this idea that a quarterback’s girlfriend can affect his play merely because they have a public relationship should die a horrible death. A similar narrative popped up in 2007 when a young Tony Romo was dating Jessica Simpson and fans blamed her for a loss in the playoffs. Although their relationship didn’t last, Romo’s career seems to have worked out just fine. Rodgers will be fine, too. Just leave his girlfriend out of it.
