After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

Hey guys, this is Kenan Thompson. I have a problem with you. Yes, you. None of y'all told me that Auto Trader has millions of new and used cars that I can shop from home. I thought we were friends.

I put smiles on your face, but I'm not smiling. No one told me that with Auto Trader a dealer can deliver cars to my home or that I could shop by price on Auto Trader. No one. Consider this friendship that you just learned we had officially over. Finally, it's easy.

Auto Trader. I'm JR of CBS Sports Radio and I want to introduce you to a new podcast titled Agents of Inclusion, brought to you by Special Olympics, Odyssey, and JR Sport Reproductions. Every Wednesday, we'll be speaking with a different Special Olympics athlete to share their stories of perseverance, accomplishment, and path towards inclusion. We don't want you to just listen.

We want you to become an active agent of inclusion as well. Special Olympics, Agents of Inclusion, find it on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Honestly, I would love to tell you that March Madness, the NCAA tournament, the World Baseball Classic, very significant injury, the stretch run in the NBA, the stretch run in the NHL. I would love to tell you that those events, story lines, topics outweigh what we heard from Aaron Rodgers on Wednesday.

I would like to tell you that, but then I would be a liar. I would rather talk about the candy locker and the candy stash that has mysteriously disappeared. Well, if you missed that story, I'll have to update you because Jay decided he would freelance without talking to me first. And this is what happens when Jay goes off on his own. We lose. Somehow, we lose candy. We come out losers because Jay decided to trust someone who was only in it for the candy. So if you missed that, well, I got to update you because you're not going to believe what happened. Well, you are going to believe what happened because I told you what was going to happen.

At least it didn't come to bolt cutters, but pretty darn close. I would like to tell you that all of those potential topics are bigger, more noteworthy than Aaron Rodgers explaining what Aaron Rodgers explaining what happened with the Packers and with the Jets and where we are right now. But I tell you this sometimes, and I mean this with all sincerity. When my mother knows about a sports storyline or a sports topic, that means it has transcended our business. It has transcended your regular fan base for sports radio. It has transcended the P1s, as we call you, those who are faithful to sports radio and sports TV and who follow it on a fairly regular basis. It transcends our audience. When my mother is asking me, why is Aaron Rodgers leaving Green Bay? Well, then you know that it's become bigger than just sports.

Also, this is what she followed it up with. I thought he was dating the Packers' owner's daughter or something, which is funny because that's how it ends up with mom, right? Again, if this is not something you follow on a regular basis, that sounds reasonable, except the Packers don't have one owner.

They have thousands of owners. Also, it's not the daughter of the Packers' owner. It's the Bucks' daughter, and they actually live in New York or in the New York area. So anyway, mom, you were very close. I didn't bother to correct her because that doesn't matter. I got engaged. Don't spread rumors.

He didn't get engaged again. That's old news. Is that a new report or an old report? So my point in all of that is to say that, yes, there are other sporting events going on. There are other significant developments from basketball, from baseball, from basketball, the other basketball, from hockey. There are significant developments. Ja Morant is speaking out for the first time in his own words. However, we knew this was going to happen.

I'm giving you fair warning now. If you do not want to hear Aaron Rodgers, if you do not want to hear my opinion on Aaron Rodgers, oh, and a little bit of I told you so, if you don't want to hear me react to what we heard from Rodgers on Wednesday, now is your chance to turn off the radio or to listen to something else. I bet there's a great Sirius XM channel with some reggae music. That sounds nice. Maybe a John Williams channel.

Oh, that sounds really nice. Can we get in touch with Sirius XM and tell them? There are probably, actually, I know this to be a fact, there are entire channels on satellite radio or Spotify or Pandora that are devoted to everything but Aaron Rodgers.

That's not this one. So spoiler alert, spoiler alert. We will be talking a lot about Aaron Rodgers, but more than that, you're going to hear from him yourself. Now, Jay and I both listened to the entire interview. I knew this was going to happen.

I knew Jay was going to listen to it when it was taking place. He was not going to be able to sleep if he was cognizant of the time and knew that it was there midday. Did you fall asleep before the Aaron Rodgers interview? Please tell me that you did not sit around waiting for Rodgers to talk. You did not stay up and wait for that because then I would really be worried about you.

That's the highlight of the day. No, I didn't. I didn't intend to stay up for it, but it just so happened to work out that way.

You actually were awake until Rodgers started speaking. I watched it live, yes. You watched it? I watched it. I watched it on YouTube. Okay, so I watched it when I was biking in the evening.

I did not get it live, but I will say, I have to confirm, I got a text message from producer Jay at 1.20 Eastern Time as Rodgers is giving us his Packers history lesson and also explaining how this was the Packers decision and also telling us, I'm fine. It's fine. Everything's fine. We're fine. We're all fine. Everybody's fine. I'm fine. No, seriously, I'm fine. I'm fine. I actually wanted Jay to do this, but then I realized it'd be way too much work.

So this is what would happen if we had a second producer working on the show like we used to for, I don't know, eight years or something. A montage of the number of times that Aaron Rodgers said, I'm fine. It's fine. We're fine. Everything's fine. Can I just tell you something?

No, this is whether it's a relationship, whether it's a conversation with producer Jay. When I tell you I'm fine, that should be your first clue that I'm not fine. When I tell you it's fine, it's not fine. And that's fine.

It really is. It's totally fine. And I'm not laughing because it's not fine. Okay. I'm just laughing because as an emotional girl who reverts to fine when it's not fine, I could smell that.

I could smell it a mile away and that's fine. It's totally fine. Everything's fine. I'm not a victim. It's fine.

And Jay knows this to be true because we have had a number of conversations that have been saltier and there'll be an opportunity for one of us to express what's wrong. And if I am still mad, what do I say to you? It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. And that's fine.

It really is. It's totally fine. It's totally fine.

I mean, it's totally, it's super fine. Okay. Stop it. Okay. Stop it. I wanted him. I wanted a montage of all the different ways that he said fine because he worked that in and you're going to hear it.

And can I just say something too? I'm not laughing at Aaron. I'm not. I actually think he handled this very well, but he also told the truth. I believe he's being sincere.

I do. And I also believe it jives with what I've told you to this point about the Packers. There is no shame in them wanting to move on. The Packers are not doing anything wrong. In fact, they're trying to protect their investment by finally giving Jordan Love the chance to play. They have to.

They have to. Otherwise they're going to lose him next year and get nothing for him. And they're never going to know if he can be an adequate, maybe above average replacement or next quarterback. I shouldn't say replacement. That's not fair. Aaron Rogers wasn't a replacement for Brett Favre and Jordan Love is not a replacement for Aaron.

Just like Baker Mayfield's not a replacement for Tom Brady. Please tell me that we can reserve some time to talk about that situation. It's totally fine.

Everything's fine. So I'm not poking fun at Aaron, but come on, you know me, I don't take myself or this job very seriously. There are times when I'm serious. This is not rocket science. It's not life and death.

It's not the war in Afghanistan or what was the war in Afghanistan. It's sports. And I do think that Aaron represented himself well on Wednesday. I don't think he came across as a diva. I don't think he came across as an egomaniac.

I mean, there are times that he has, but it wasn't Wednesday. I don't think he was weird or odd or strange. I think he was being straight up and he was telling you the truth.

I will say, as someone who knows people really well and who communicates for a living, it's very obvious. A, this was not his choice necessarily. Now, it might have eventually been his choice, but he was very clear about the fact that this was the Packers.

Number two, what did I tell you a couple of days ago? No one likes to be shown the door. No one likes to be replaced.

No one likes to be told we're moving on. It doesn't matter if you're Aaron Rodgers with a Super Bowl ring that he was wearing, I think. He didn't identify it, but it certainly looked like he was wearing his Super Bowl ring. Super Bowl ring, four MVP awards. He's a multi-time All-Pro, 10-time Pro Bowler. And as he says, he's at least in the conversation for greatest Packer ever. I don't know how you can dispute that. It's funny because that made headlines, but I don't know how you can dispute that he's at least in the conversation for the greatest Packer of all time.

Duh. He wasn't proud or rude or anything except for, I would say, very open and vulnerable. He also wasn't his normal jokey self, right? Other than when he was taking aim at Adam Schefter.

He wasn't that. You can tell that there's a little pain there. You can tell that his feelings are hurt.

You can tell that this is, as he said multiple times, bittersweet. And we are all human beings, at least most of us. There are bots who listen in, you know, similar to social media. Oh, and our phones are listening to us too. We know that.

Shoot, I'm going to get inundated with Packers memorabilia and offers. We're all human beings. Haven't we all been dumped? Haven't we all lost relationships? Haven't we all been fired, or most of us? I have. I've been fired three times. It's not easy.

Anytime. It stings. It's humiliating. It's embarrassing. It hurts. This was not going to be easy.

You know what? I would say the same thing about Jim Boeheim and Syracuse. Of course the writing was on the wall.

The school needed to move forward. They allowed Jim Boeheim a few extra years to coach his sons, to go out on his terms, but he wouldn't do it. It's the same thing with Aaron. I think the team would have preferred that this was Aaron's choice. They would have preferred that he retire, or he tell them that he's ready to move on. But he didn't want to. As much as it stinks, and as much as I would have loved for Aaron to retire a Packer, he even said he would have preferred that he went out as the Super Bowl champion with Green Bay, but that didn't happen because of how they ended the season.

They didn't even make the playoffs. It's time. And while you may not believe Aaron when he says it's fine, at least not today, it will be fine.

It will be fine. He's resilient. He's a professional athlete who's still capable of playing at a very high level, but also he's a human being. And we bounce back pretty damn well. Most of us. Sometimes. Most of the time, actually.

It's how we're recreated. That spirit. And he also has plenty of motivation.

It's kind of funny if you watch the interview with Pat McAfee, what you see, and I actually hear it in the background of one of these cuts, what you see is McAfee starting to build. Weirdly, I knew exactly what he was doing. He looked like he was piling chips and building a tower of chips on his shoulder, because that's how Aaron came across.

Again, respectful of the Packers, complimentary of the fan base and the city of Green Bay. He answered all the questions that were asked of him. And he did it with maturity and professionalism. Maybe indicative of the fact that he spent five days and four nights in the darkness and he's in a good spot right now. But there's no doubt. And as in zero doubt, if you can read character, body language, and if you are a study of human nature, there's no doubt this hurts. Of course it does. I would be worried if it didn't. So that's how you know Roger still has a heart. And as much as people are maybe tired of the shtick, I hope that if you watch the interview with McAfee, you recognize, hey, he's a human being too. And he's dealing with feeling like he got dumped.

Actually, I guess it's happened twice in a year now, right? Cause he had to deal with it in his personal life too. We all go through it. It's life.

Sometimes life sucks. But the cool thing for Aaron is that he still has $60 million waiting for him coming up with the New York Jets. And he does have a new home where he will be worshiped as in the ground he walks on. The Jets fans can't wait to welcome him to town. Can't wait.

And now we know what's holding up the deal as well. So yes, it's fine. It's going to be fine. It's totally fine. It's just probably not fine as many times or as often as he said it on Wednesday, but it will be fine. I have faith.

It really is. Maybe when I have more time on my hands, like the next couple of days when I'm watching college basketball and March Madness and Fuego, I will go through the interview and count the number of times he says I'm fine. Jay, is it possible that we can get a montage of every time he said I'm fine?

Can we hire someone? I mean, it's totally possible. It could definitely be. You have nothing going on. No. You ruined our candy stash. So I kind of feel like you owe me punishment. I got to go through an hour of Adrienne Rogers to see how many.

It's fine. Go through and and count the number of times that Aaron says it's fine. Oh my gosh. But how funny would that be? It might be as funny as Mike Tomlin. And one of his I mean, we love Mike Tomlin around here.

We are Mike Tomlin disciples. But it might be as funny as Mike Tomlin. It might. It might.

It might. I'm just I'm telling you, I texted Jay in the middle of so I again, I listened to it at probably seven o'clock Eastern time when I was biking. The number of times he says I'm fine.

Me thinks he doth protesteth too much. Totally fine. All right. So yes, we're going to have fun with it because that's what we do around here. We don't take ourselves too seriously.

And we definitely do not take sports too seriously because my goodness, that gives you heart palpitations, high stress level. No, I mean, he could laugh at it. He's fine. He's fine. So we're good.

All right, coming up. We also will hear from Ja Morant in an interview that he did with Jalen Rose. We're going to get into a little bit of what happened in the NBA on Wednesday night, just because there were a couple of significant storylines. But also, did you see?

Oh, goodness. Did you see the end of the Puerto Rico Dominican Republic game at the World Baseball Classic? And no, I'm not going to break down what happened in the game. It's still an exhibition. It's cool. I'm excited.

We'll talk about it when it gets to its championship rounds. But that's not why I bring it up tonight. Players in tears. Oh, this is the worst nightmare for Jay. Who is it the worst nightmare for? Why does this keep happening? I don't know.

I really don't know. It's the worst nightmare for Jay's favorite baseball team. Oh, dear.

There was a wheelchair. That's never good. Never good.

I don't know if I've ever really seen that before. A guy getting taken off a baseball field on a wheelchair. It's not great. They were worried about putting pressure on his knee. Oh, dear. I actually feel terrible for him.

And, and I feel terrible for him. That's, again, the nightmare for teams who send players to participate. Now, could it happen in spring training? Sure.

But it didn't. Which means the question will be asked of teams. Why would you allow your stars to participate in something that doesn't count for anything? You can find me on Twitter, A Law Radio.

We're so glad to have you with us. I actually feel like last night's question is still very pertinent because we now know that, yes, Aaron Rodgers will be a jet. My gosh, that was like not even the most important part of what came out of his interview with Pat McAfee.

He was like buried at the end of the interview or in the middle of the interview. If you are like me, a procrastinator person, and you haven't yet filled out your brackets. I haven't even done my family bracket. Everybody else in the family, even those who know nothing about basketball and barely know that it's March Madness, they've all filled out their brackets. Not me. I'm the last one. Jay, have you done your brackets? I have not.

Why do we wait? And now the thing is the games tip off generally before I would be in bed or I'm sorry after I would be in bed and they start before I would wake up. And so I have no choice but to get them done. I haven't done them. I just, I'm feeling very crunchy.

I'm feeling like I'm very crunched. But then, you know, you get to do it the final morning. You kind of get all the information. It's the last you could possibly send it in. It's fine. Everything's fine. It's going to be totally fine.

It's all fine. It's a trap. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Nobody wants to be the bad guy in the situation and honestly there isn't at this point a bad guy in the situation. As long as everything gets resolved the right way, they want to move on and now I want to play and so that would obviously be me moving on as well. Let's just be honest, like you drafted Jordan. If I hadn't won MVP twice in a row, this would have been a conversation two years before, which is totally fine and I get it. And Ted Thompson, you know, rest his soul, is not there anymore. He drafted me. None of those guys are, you know, who were there other than Sam Seo, who was the West Coast scout, you know, who supposedly stood on the table to, you know, for me. Shout out to Sammy.

Hey, shout out Sam. He's still there but, you know, it's a different regime and every regime wants to have their guys in there and I totally understand that. I mean, it's a business. I'm not naive to that. It is what it is and, you know, I just have a lot of gratitude for the time there but now it's time to, you know, it's time to do the right thing because I don't think, you know, I don't think there's a scenario where they're like, well, you know, we want this and Jets aren't willing to give it to us so we'll take you back. Like, you know, that's not the reality and that's fine. It really is. It's totally fine.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Totally fine. You guys are cracking me up with your tweets, A-Law Radio. I know someone's gonna get mad at me and get salty at me because I'm having fun with this but come on. I mean, this whole scenario is under a microscope now for weeks. Not that different from what happened when Brett Favre was leaving the Packers and going through his divorce with the Packers.

In fact, I would say it wasn't fine then and he never said it was fine. He wasn't about to give the franchise any grace. At least Aaron is trying and he's not gonna say a bad word about the franchise. Not overtly.

You're gonna have to read between the lines. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Rodgers did an appearance on Pat McAfee but he made it very clear that he wasn't coming on the show on Wednesday to break any news. He wasn't appearing on the show to let everybody know what his decision was. He was appearing to clear up the misconceptions, to answer questions, and to let everyone know where they were. But that there was no big decision that was being made on Wednesday. He wasn't there to announce a big decision.

Instead, he was just there to clear up what he feels like is a rumor mill that had completely gotten out of control. At this point as I sit here, you know, I think since Friday I made it clear that my intention was to play and my intention was to play for the New York Jets. Okay. And I haven't been holding anything up at this point. It's been compensation that the Packers are trying to get for me and kind of digging their heels in. So I would just, I think it is interesting at this point to step back and look at the whole picture. You know, my side love and appreciation, gratitude for everything that Green Bay has done for me.

Love, so much love and gratitude and just heart open for the Packer fans and what it meant to be their quarterback. And also the reality of the situation. You know, like it is what it is.

The Packers would like to move on. They've let me know that in so many words. They've let other people know that in direct words because I still have that fire and I want to play and I would like to play in New York.

It's just a matter of, you know, getting that done at this point. I gotta admit, I went into the darkness 90% retiring, 10% playing. That's where my mind was. My mind was, I'm tired of this.

I hadn't got back into my workouts yet. And I thought that that was what was best for me. So I went into the darkness to contemplate a lot of different things. But one day I spent entirely on the reality I was retired and one day I spent entirely on the reality I was coming back and playing and just really sat with that for hours and hours.

What that looked like, what the reality is, how that all felt. And when I came out, I was really interested in what the kind of landscape was, where Green Bay was at. And obviously, if I wanted to play, you know, what were the options? I go back and forth with whether or not I believe that he was 90% retired. It doesn't seem like he was 90% retired, but he could say whatever he wants, of course, because this was all in his own head. I kind of feel like there was no way he was going to retire, really. But I'm glad he came to that conclusion if he was seriously considering it because I love watching Aaron play football.

I do. And an Aaron Rodgers with a chip on his shoulder. It's like a Tom Brady with a chip on his shoulder. All the greats, when they play with chips on their shoulders, ooh, watch out.

When they play salty and spicy with something to prove, and at 40 years old, you wouldn't necessarily think that is the case, right? Been there, done that. I'm okay with what I've accomplished. I've got nothing left to prove except now Aaron feels like he's got something to prove.

One of the parts that I laughed out loud, and we'll get to this after the update, but one of the parts that I laughed out loud over was when McAfee essentially said to him, okay, so where are we then? What's happening? What are you thinking? How is this going to play out? And Rodgers says, all right, well, you're just going to have to give me a little time here. I'm going to launch into it.

I'm going to take a little time here. And he goes into a Packers history lesson. He launches into this very long diatribe and the guys, while they did make comments in the peanut gallery, they let him talk, but it was clear that he needed to get it off his chest. And so they were being his friends and they were allowing him to get it off his chest. But yeah, the crux of this essentially is, according to Aaron, that the Packers made the decision. They told him one thing, but they did something else. And when he came out of the darkness, he actually realized that, at least in his words, that something had changed.

That they maybe weren't as genuine with him or as open with him as he thought they were before he went into his darkness retreat. Everything that I was told in the week that I was in Green Bay was, take as long as you want and we want you to retire a Packer. You want to come back and play?

Obviously, the door is wide open. So that was the information I was going on. Now, when I came out of the darkness, something changed. I'm not exactly sure what that was, but something changed. And I got back to my phone after five days off of it, because your phone's not on the entire time, there's no Wi-Fi on that hippie mountain. And when I got back to that little shack they have where there's one bar of Wi-Fi and got back to 100 text messages and emails and all different things, I realized that there'd been a little bit of a shift.

And that I heard from multiple people that I trust around the league players, mostly, that there was some shopping going on, that they were interested in actually moving me. I realized something changed when I came out of the darkness. That in and of itself is just a funny image. When I emerged from the darkness, like Jesus walking out of the tomb. And he realized something had changed. What hit me in the darkness.

And he says it too with a straight face. When I emerged from the darkness. When I came out of the darkness. Also, Marco, they talked about pooping again. Why?

Why do they feel the need? Why? They ruined. I was having so much fun with this.

And then I made the mistake of listening to the end. And of course, it came back to pooping in the darkness. I was unaware of that part. Well, that's because we producer Jay knows better than to give me any more cuts about a former MVP quarterback pooping. Well, we had it. We got the story on that. We need to rehash that. Well, he did. They rehashed.

They definitely rehashed. Also, it's clear that while he is going to continue playing and that he is going to be fine. He's made that very clear.

I don't think he's fine now, but he will be fine. I mean, it hurts when you get dumped. Let's be fair.

It does hurt. So I think he'll get there and he's got something to play for, but boy, he is still pretty ticked off about the rumors, the reports, the speculation, and this idea that he issued a wish list. So we talked about it last night that he actually handed the Jets a wish list. He is really ticked off about.

And so he's not letting go of his vendetta against some of the NFL insiders who he feels like portrayed him the wrong way. And it was really kind of funny, actually. So, I mean, we could use the audio or just tell you. It was kind of funny because he referred to Adam Schefter, apparently Shefty, as everybody calls him, reached out to Aaron to ask him for confirmation. What are you doing?

Can I put anything out there? And Rogers response was lose my number. And right after he says this on the McAfee show, Schefter puts out a tweet. It's a screenshot of Rogers DM, Rogers text message, actually saying to him, lose my number. And so Schefter played along and made a joke out of it, which I appreciate because that was probably embarrassing too, a little bit like, all right, I just got shut down. Maybe not embarrassing, but still he didn't get what he was looking for. And Rogers told him to lose my number.

And so Schefter kind of makes the joke of it, which I thought was funny. Yeah, but again, it's Aaron Rogers talking on both sides of his mouth for me. I mean, you don't like that the insiders. It's totally fine. No, but I mean, like, you don't like that the insiders report things because you say they're not in my inner circle. They don't have the sources. All right, great.

I don't have your source. So I'm going to come straight to you. What are you going to do? Lose my number.

Well, what do you want? You either want to say it yourself or do you want sources to say? Somebody's got to say it or we're just going to all sit in the darkness.

Like it doesn't make sense. If you want it to be your voice, he's coming directly to you. So then now why are you complaining? We know Aaron holds a grudge. I mean, come on, Aaron holds grudges. So he's not going to let this go.

Great. Again, it's just to me, it's silliness. Like that's the stuff where you lose me. There's a lot of stuff that Aaron Rogers says, believe it or not, that I'm like, yeah, I get it. That makes sense. You know, the mentality of question things and you know, this is this and this is that.

Like I can listen to a lot of that stuff. I just don't like when you do it both ways. You got to be consistent. If you're upset about reports that you say, well, they don't talk to any of my guys because if you're in my inner circle, you don't talk to these people and they go, you know what? You're right.

So that's great. So I'm not going to talk to any sources. I'm not going to go to any people that claim to know you. I'm going to come straight to your face. What do you want to do?

Get the hell away from me. Does Rogers have an obligation to share it with insiders? No, but the point is then why are you complaining if they go to sources because you won't tell them? They do have a job to do, right? So what's your complaint?

I don't get that's the part I don't understand. You don't like that they're reporting anything or do you like that they have a job? I don't what I don't believe and I wouldn't either. I don't believe that he appreciates how often there's stuff put out there that's A inaccurate and B makes him look bad. Fine if it's inaccurate and you're right.

He would complain that get the sources right. Great. So you're I'm telling you I was wrong.

That's basically what chef there's comments are like fine. I won't get anybody else. I'm going to come straight to you.

You won't tell me either. So now what? Well, I mean if it's me I would rather reserve the right to share the news myself rather than do it through an insider. So like it's the Tom Brady retirement thing, right? I mean Brady got usurped with his own retirement announcement. I understand what you're saying and I don't mind getting the story from an insider after the fact but if I'm Aaron Rogers and it's clear that he wants to control the narrative well then I want to I want to share it myself. Great great then why the lose my number nonsense?

Because he's salty. Right there we go. That's the inconsistency that I don't like. You're fine with look anything that you get you get it straight for me. I'm trying to tell you. But now you got to make it personal where it's got to be something over the top. That's the part I don't like. Totally not fine. Don't have your number.

You're not going to have my number. I mean I mean I've given people major insight to me and I've just I'll just this is one of my things that I do. It's passive aggressive when someone comes to me and asks me what's wrong and I'm like I'm fine. Just know right away I'm not fine. And that's why this whole thing with Aaron Rogers still screams of you know everybody look at me everybody look at me and then what are you looking at?

That's what it feels like every time. He thought he was a little more open and genuine and vulnerable in this interview. I didn't think he was as egomaniacal as what we typically get from him. Maybe but it still comes back to a lot of that stuff and like I said for a lot of the things that he says I'm I'm cool with.

You're fine. I just don't like inconsistency. That's the part that makes me personally not everybody's perfect. Perfect. No just be consistent. I've always said if you're going to be like an egomaniacal jerk great just do it all time. That's all like that's the part where you're complaining about so I don't like this and then you turn around and do the exact same thing. No you lose me now.

Just stay with what you don't like. Fine. Then we're good. Marco doesn't forget. Marco's like an elephant.

He doesn't forget. Okay we're late. You're late. Actually you're super late so time to go but next hour the mystery of the missing candy.

Just just wait. Oh no don't ask. Don't you dare get the story from from producer Jay.

You have to get my version of the story. Okay I just was unaware that there was candy. Never mind that there was candy missing. Well there was candy. I was unaware of all of this.

There was candy. Okay I was unaware. I did not know. It's After Hours with Amy Laura.

Touche. You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Very few players play for only one team and you know obviously Brad had a great career. Aaron had a great career here and regardless of what happens you know Aaron will be in the pro football hall of fame. He'll be in our hall of fame and we'll bring him back. He'll retire his number.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Just like Tom Brady leaving New England. Just like any legend essentially getting told that we'd prefer to move on.

This was never going to be easy. Do you remember how Peyton Manning left Indianapolis? He was coming off of all of those surgeries and he had missed a year. The Colts wanted to move on. They had the overall number one draft pick. They knew Andrew Luck was available. They wanted to move on and so he became a free agent.

He had the opportunity to pick his next destination. I know that Peyton's tenure in the NFL ended with a second Super Bowl with Denver and so there's no quibbling that he made the right decision and that it worked out perfectly for him. But this is something that happens to a lot of professional athletes especially in the NFL. Joe Montana did not finish his career with San Francisco. Right?

We could go on and on. Jerry Rice didn't finish his career with the Niners either. It is a difficult part of the business because it behooves a team especially in the NFL. It behooves a team to move to move on and to have a contingency plan.

To be ready to change eras, to make a drastic shift before the player completely falls off the map or before the player completely loses all of his skills. It's an art form and some teams get it wrong and some teams butcher the process. But isn't this what Bill Belichick's been doing for years? He sends guys packing, either cuts them, trades them, refuses to give them new deals before they have reached the end of their usefulness and I'm referring only to football.

He does that first. He always is preemptive about it and sometimes it's painful. It was never going to be easy. It was never going to be a nice neat little package unless Rogers retired and he says when he came out of the darkness that's not what he was doing. Although the Packers are going to say the right thing publicly, they were ready to move on.

I don't know what changed that or what moved that. It is that, hey, you know, we need to make a decision here because he hasn't made a decision yet. Again, there's no victims here. I'm not sitting here as a victim. You know, I love Green Bay. I love the fan base.

They're incredible. I live for playing, playing for them and for Lambeau. A lot of love for the organization. I just think I wish that in the beginning of the offseason that had been the conversation because I love direct communication. If they had just said, listen, we think it's time to move in a different direction and we love you and you're going to be a Packer All-Famer. You're going to go in the hall as a Packer.

We're going to retire your number, whatever it might be. But it's time to move on. I would have said, man, thank you so much just for telling me that. I really, really appreciate that. That means the world to me that you would tell me that because I really believe that's a sentiment and that's fine. It really is.

It's totally fine. This is an incredible profession, but it's a tough business. And so he has told his perspective, he does it in a variety of ways in the Pat McAfee show on Wednesday, that this was the Packers choice. He makes it very clear. They're ready to move on. They likely would have moved on maybe a year after they drafted Jordan Love, except he won first the 2020 MVP and then the 21 MVP.

And how do you do that? He's been very handsomely paid. No one needs to feel sorry for Aaron Rogers. He spent 18 years in Green Bay. He won a Super Bowl, four MVP awards.

They will retire not only his number, but he will, of course, be one of the greatest Packers of all time. We have this idyllic concept of how players should remain with one franchise their entire career, especially those who are Hall of Famers, but that's unrealistic. And also it's not something we do in business, right? I can't even count on two hands the number of companies I've worked for. I've worked for two different networks, even at the highest level. We move around and change jobs all the time. Now it's his turn to change jobs and try something new. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio.