ESPN takes deep dive into latter days of Aaron Rodgers

Here’s some crap that Aaron Rodgers might not want to waste his time reading.

I didn’t write it, this time. It’s a #LongRead from Tim Keown on ESPN.com that delves into the latter days of Aaron Rodgers’s NFL career.

The vibe is gently biting and critical of Rodgers. And, like many #LongReads, the best stuff is Easter-egged throughout the something-thousand words.

At one point, Keown described the awkward vibe at the first practice after the Monday night loss to the Bills, a defeat punctuated by an interception that Rodgers blamed on receiver Mike Williams for running the wrong route.

“It underscored the friction between the artist and those around him,” Keown writes. “Rodgers’ ongoing torment of ‘bringing guys along’ and ‘being a better leader’ and ‘setting the tone’ always carries an undercurrent of superiority, a verbal pat on the head. Even his default sideline look after a failed drive is almost always that of a disappointed dad.”

Williams spoke at some length to Keown about getting called out.

“How can I explain it?” Williams said. “Aaron wants to win. He sees the game from a different perspective. He’s been in the league a long time, seen everything, knows what he wants. He’s been in the same offense his whole career, so if he wants it this certain way, you gotta do it that certain way.”

Keown writes that Williams didn’t seem upset. But he admitted that he didn’t like being called out.

“No, no, no,” Williams said, “but it is what it is. . . . I’ve been in this league for a while now, you know? You live, you learn. You see so many things happen, and you just have to go into next-play mentality, new-day mentality.

“People were sending [the video] to me. They’re asking me if I saw it. I’m like, ‘What do you want me to do?’ I see it, but what am I supposed to do, though? I’m grown. It doesn’t affect me any kind of way. Not like I’m going to go home and cry, you know? Beat myself up about it? Nah. Nah. . . . Make the next play, right? Isn’t that what they tell us?”

The youngest player on the team had this to say about the oldest player on the team: “The driving force in me wanting to play my best is not wanting to disappoint him,” rookie running back Braelon Allen told Keown. “There are challenges, especially with how particular and detailed he is within the scheme. He expects everyone to be where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there. It’s a lot, you know?”

It’s definitely a lot. If the team is winning, it’s welcome. If it’s losing, it’s exhausting.

And that’s the bottom-line takeaway from Keown’s article. Rodgers is exhausting. And the Jets seem exhausted. Which makes it hard to imagine the Jets wanting to give it another go with a guy who by all appearances is becoming harder to deal with as his skills diminish.