Out of the Darkness
The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Instant New York Times Bestseller
"A masterwork. ... O'Connor answers every question, deftly and deeply, that we've had about the most controversial person in America's biggest game." —Peter King
Four-time New York Times bestselling sport biographer Ian O’Connor pulls back the curtain on four-time NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers, delivering the definitive portrait of the legendary yet mysterious quarterback who has astonished, befuddled, yet always captivated fans of America’s #1 sport.
Aaron Rodgers is among the two or three most talented players to ever hold the most important job in American team sports – quarterback. He also stands as the most mysterious and polarizing figure in the modern-day national pastime that is professional football.
From his controversial Covid stance to his methods of spiritual awakening to his estrangement from his family to his high-profile romances to his devastating Achilles injury a mere four plays into his New York Jets career, Rodgers has long dominated the NFL’s news cycle.
At thirty-nine, in search of a challenge that would rejuvenate him, Rodgers divorced the iconic Green Bay Packers of Vince Lombardi fame for the Jets, who have not appeared in a Super Bowl since Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. The trade made Rodgers the biggest story in the biggest league in the biggest market. By far.
That story only got bigger when Rodgers shockingly went down on the night of 9/11, in front of a packed house that roared for him when he took the field carrying an American flag, and in front of the biggest Monday Night Football audience in ESPN history, peaking at more than 25 million viewers across all platforms. Rodgers then shocked the world by pulling off the fastest recorded comeback from an Achilles tear, returning to practice eleven weeks after surgery. Remarkably enough, he would have played again in the 2023 season, at age 40, had the Jets remained in playoff contention.
Ian O’Connor uses hundreds of original interviews to pull back the curtain and answer the most penetrating questions about the league’s most enigmatic player. Just like he did in his defining bios of Bill Belichick, Mike Krzyzewski, Derek Jeter, Jack Nicklaus, and Arnold Palmer, O’Connor reveals all sides of an all-time great and delivers a portrait of a complex man that will forever shape the way he is viewed.
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Sports journalist O'Connor (Coach K) struggles to get inside the head of NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers in this competent if unenlightening biography. Though Rodgers was of relatively small stature when he joined his high school junior varsity team, he had a strong arm that propelled him to an impressive college career at UC Berkeley. In 2005, he was drafted by the Green Bay Packers, but he frequently butted heads with star quarterback Brett Favre, who treated Rodgers as a threat. The Packers pushed out Favre after a lackluster 2007 season, giving Rodgers his moment in the spotlight. O'Connor gamely covers Rodgers's star-making run with the team and the falling-out with coach Mike McCarthy that led to his 2023 trade to the Jets, but the author comes up short in his attempts to make sense of Rodgers's life off the field. O'Connor offers a granular account of barbs traded in the press between Rodgers and his estranged family, but the origins of the dispute and what it reveals about Rodgers remain unclear. O'Connor also throws up his hands when it comes to elucidating Rodgers's conspiratorial tendencies, noting that the athlete is habitually drawn to debunked theories about the JFK assassination, 9/11, and Covid vaccines but offering little insight as to why. This comes up short.
