Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is the odds-on favorite to be the 2021 NFL MVP, which would be his second in a row and the fourth of his career. If selected, Rodgers would be the first repeat winner of the award since Peyton Manning did it in 2008 and 2009.
Rodgers has his Packers heading into the final week of the season first in the NFC, with a 13-3 record. In Sunday night’s game against the Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay locked up the top seed in the conference, giving Rodgers a bye week and home field throughout the playoffs.
His numbers are ridiculous, throwing for 3,977 yards and 35 touchdowns to just four interceptions. He has a quarterback rating of 111.
He’s done all of this following an offseason of drama in which it wasn’t clear if he’d even be playing in a Packers uniform this season, before finally showing up to Green Bay’s training camp. He then took time out of his first press conference to air his grievances with the organization. In November, Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19, informing the world that he was unvaccinated. He was hammered in the media for “misleading” the public regarding his vaccination status, after telling reporters in August that he was “immunized” against the virus.
And yet, as the self-inflicted distractions continued to pile up, Rodgers has continued to win and perform brilliantly on the field.
For one MVP voter, that won’t be enough for Rodgers to earn his vote.
Hub Arkush — Chicago sportswriter and MVP voter — will not be voting for Rodgers, not because there is someone that has been more impressive on the field, but because Arkush isn’t a fan of Rodgers off of the field.
“I don’t think you can be the biggest jerk in the league and punish your team, and your organization and your fan base the way he did and be the Most Valuable Player,” Arkush said on 670 The Score in Chicago. “Has he been the most valuable on the field? Yeah, you could make that argument, but I don’t think he is clearly that much more valuable than Jonathan Taylor or Cooper Kupp or maybe even Tom Brady. So, from where I sit, the rest of it is why he’s not gonna be my choice.”
Arkush was asked if voters were allowed to consider off the field issues — like a players vaccination status — when deciding who to vote for.
“There’s no guidelines,” Arkush said. “We are told to pick the guy who we think is most valuable to his team. And I don’t think it says anywhere, ‘strictly on the field,’ although I do think he hurt his team on the field by the way he acted off the field. They’re gonna get the No. 1 seed anyway, but what if the difference had come down to the Chiefs game, where he lied about being vaccinated, ended up not playing and they got beat? I think all these things should be considerations.”
“He ruined the entire offseason for that football team,” Arkush continued. “They were left in jeopardy, they had no idea what they were doing. A lot of the off the field stuff was wasted because he wasn’t there. He tortured his fanbase and he’s already started doing it again.”
Arkush said that based strictly on Rodgers’ offseason behavior, he wouldn’t be getting his MVP vote, and the issue surrounding his vaccination status was “one more log on the fire.”
“I just think that the way he’s carried himself is inappropriate. And the vaccine thing was just one more log on the fire, so to speak,” Arkush said. “I think he’s a bad guy, and I don’t think a bad guy can be the most valuable guy at the same time.”
Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers, and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to [email protected].