“He’s very good in communication,” said Robert Saleh, revealing that while Aaron Rodgers’s minicamp absence is unexcused and he will be fined, he told Saleh he wasn’t going to be there. Per Saleh, Rodgers “had an event that was very important to him, which he communicated.” This is fine by Saleh! Totally fine!!
Where is he, though?
He was there yesterday for his physical, so whatever’s happening must be happening this week. Good man PFT Commenter pointed out that Dead & Company’s residence is still going on at the Sphere, but that’s the case for a couple more months. RFK Jr. campaign events are always a possibility, but the candidate’s calendar appears open the next two days. We’re nowhere close to either a new moon or a full moon, and I’m not finding any other major astrological happenings tonight, especially because Rodgers isn’t a Gemini (In related news, I just learned a few things about astrology). Possibilities:
A Wedding
This is a longshot, but think of it this way: What would be more Aaron Rodgers than a semi-secret wedding covered ad nauseum after the fact? Maybe one where he tells his friends, “Let’s make a week out of it,” then shows up late because he had to get a physical at minicamp?
“Sorry to be late, guys. You know how it goes with work, being an NFL quarterback. Gotta be there for my team. Now who’s got the mezcal?! You know they bury this stuff underground? Feel like it connects me with the earth.”
A Funeral
This might be the likeliest. There’s definitely a chance someone died and he wouldn’t just say it, because privacy, but he will say it on the Pat McAfee Show next week and talk about how messed up it is that he was gone for a loved one’s funeral while the media called him a bad teammate. He will conduct this interview over FaceTime in front of a wall of pictures of him with said loved one.
(By the way, I’m assuming Bill Walton’s services are private?)
He’s Stopping Marcedes Lewis Before It’s Too Late
Marcedes Lewis reportedly re-signed with the Bears yesterday. But. What if he didn’t? What if the ink isn’t dry? Covert ops! He’s bringing his guy to New York!!
(Alternate covert ops possibility: He’s going to get the Epstein flight logs himself.)
He’s Doing Drugs
I was going to speculate about Rodgers undergoing some friendship ceremony with a supplement provider (I checked a lot of people’s birthdays, by the way, and many were harder to find than would be ideal), but that would probably include drugs too.
I don’t think this would be ayahuasca again. Maybe it would be ayahuasca, but my gut says it’s something new. It’s like ayahuasca or a darkness retreat, but it’s new, it can only happen on June 11th or 12th, and he doesn’t want to tell us about it because the darkness retreat jokes got under his skin. Overall, I’d say this is second-likeliest, following funeral.
Etc.
- Speaking of drugs, Luka Dončić evidently played Game 2 of the NBA Finals on painkillers. By which I mean, he reportedly received a painkilling injection before the game. Funnier to think of him pulling a Dock Ellis, though, and I don’t think saying he played the game on painkillers is technically incorrect. Plus, people can’t get mad at him for doing that. He can say it’s a cultural thing. And on that topic: Surely, European NBA players are smoking cigarettes at halftime, right? If not, I’m calling bullshit. If those guys aren’t smoking cigarettes, they are not European, and are instead a bunch of Michiganders Adam Silver kidnapped and sent abroad as youths in an effort to grow the game.
- Speaking of nefarious activity, Major League Eating banned Joey Chestnut from the Fourth of July hot dog contest! It’s unclear who’s nefarious here—MLE or Chestnut—but the dispute boils* down to Chestnut’s agreement on a sponsorship deal with Impossible Foods, those people who stole the idea behind “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” and applied it to plant-based meat. To my knowledge, no presidential candidate has commented on this yet. And they claim they love our country.
- Speaking of countries, bad look for Canada so far in these Stanley Cup Finals. Although I do love that the customary NHL response to going down 2–0 in a series is to start checking people in the face and swinging your hockey stick into their nuts. This happens every series, it seems, and everyone accepts it as the correct response. What a sport.
*Or should we say grills!!!!!! *crying laughing emoji x20*
