Aaron Rodgers' (revisionist) history tour continues with latest interview

It's been more than three months since reports suggested the Packers were ready to trade Aaron Rodgers, more than two months since he appeared on "The Pat McAfee Show" to air grievances and say he wanted to be traded to the Jets and more than one month since Rodgers was officially introduced as New York's newest quarterback.

That seems like enough time for Rodgers to move on and stop talking about the past, but apparently that's not how Rodgers' art works.

In a recent interview with The Athletic that alternately made me think of a breakup song, a long text exchange between young friends and a movie, Rodgers takes us on a rather complete journey (at least from his perspective) from when the relationship turned dicey to the aftermath.

In it, we learned or confirmed:

*Unsurprisingly, the Packers' draft of QB Jordan Love in the first round in 2020 set all of this in motion. The Rodgers ethos was perfectly distilled in the first quote in the whole piece, which described his reaction to that decision: "That's when I went and poured myself a little glass of Añejo [tequila] and waited for somebody to call me."

The QB was frustrated, his feelings were hurt, and he never really recovered. But he also wanted someone else in the organization to make the first move.

*It's quite telling that, per an off-the-record source in the article, Rodgers' agent presented the Packers with an ultimatum early in the 2021 offseason: trade Rodgers or fire GM Brian Gutekunst.

Rodgers wouldn't confirm or deny whether that was true, and his agent didn't respond. That's a good indication that it was in fact true — though the Packers didn't acquiesce and Rodgers had another MVP year in 2021.

*We get a little timeline confusion when Rodgers talks about Davante Adams. Shortly after Rodgers signed an extension in March 2022 to stay with the Packers, Adams was traded to the Raiders.

It is presented as though Rodgers thought Adams was going to stay and was surprised that he wouldn't have his all-Pro target anymore, but Rodgers also said, "By the time (Adams) got to the end of it, I think he kind of made up his mind he was gonna go somewhere else."

*The most petty stuff, though, comes over the course of the last several months.

Rodgers describes a meeting he was supposed to have to talk about the future in late January while Gutekunst was in California — one that never happened — as if it was a casual missed connection between old pals.

"Life happens," Rodgers says now. "When I hit him back, he was already out of town, but it wasn't like I hit him back like five days later. He hit me up, like, in the morning of one day. I hit him up either the night or the next morning or the next day and then he was gone."

And Rodgers doubled down on what he had said previously: that the Packers should have used FaceTime to get in touch with him because of unreliable cell service at his California home. The whole subject of communication between the sides this offseason is borderline comical when Rodgers talks about it.

"Did Brian text me more than I texted him? Yeah, but did I ghost him? No," Rodgers said.

What is this, high school?

Rodgers continued: "I texted him back. There was back-and-forths that we had and so this is the story you wanna go with? You're gonna stand on this hill of austerity and say that arguably in the conversation of the best player in your franchise history, you're gonna say I couldn't get a hold of him and that's why we had to move on?"

You're gonna stand on this hill of austerity? Is he reading lines that Wes Anderson wrote for Jason Schwartzman in a yet-to-be-released movie?

There's more, but I'll stop there. It's compelling but mostly meaningless theater, water under a bridge that Rodgers seems determined to light on fire in a quest to shape public perception.

Here are four more things to know today:

*As I talked about on Wednesday's Daily Delivery podcast, the split between Bally Sports and the Padres on Tuesday — which transferred broadcast rights to MLB starting today — is an interesting test case for what might happen with the Twins.

*The Twins in their last six games have scored, in order of most recent to oldest: one run, seven runs, zero runs, nine runs, one run, seven runs. That's an average of 4.25 runs per game, but a decent average is meaningless if you don't give yourself a chance to win half the time.

*The Lynx fell to 0-5, and the march toward the 2024 WNBA Draft continues to get more interesting. Keep this in mind, though: WNBA lottery odds are determined by combined record of the two most recent seasons. The Lynx almost certainly won't finish with the best odds because Indiana went 5-31 last year while they went 14-22. But the second-best odds? Very much possible, and still a spot to land a franchise player in a deep draft.

*Will former Wolves personnel boss Gersson Rosas get a chance to be the Knicks GM?