Aaron Rodgers returned to Pat McAfee’s guest seat Monday and brought back his former persona of calling out controversies and ruffling some feathers. Amid rants over his COVID-19 vaccination status and 2021 MVP award, the biggest one he wanted addressed was the Dianna Russini-Mike Vrabel saga from earlier this year. 

But if you look at it closely, not only did the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback succeed in getting one over the network that literally airs The Pat McAfee Show, but also over Russini’s comments from 2023 about his move to the New York Jets.

“There’s a major scandal, and it’s just like nobody can f—— talk about it? What are we even doing here?” said Rodgers on The Pat McAfee Show.

When the hosts commented that “personal lives are personal lives,” referring to how Rodgers likes to keep his own life outside the gridiron under wraps, the QB didn’t hedge.

“I understand, but if it’s affecting certain things, if there’s leaks going on, if there’s tampering going on, if that person is also an MVP voter and a coach of the year voter. Remember when I won MVP in 2021? Like, how are we allowing these people to have an impact?”

The four-time MVP’s latent feud with Russini could be traced all the way back to his 2023 move to the Jets. Then, the reporter publicly discussed a wish list of sorts that Rodgers has for the Jets with names of his former teammates from Green Bay he wanted in New York.

The situation got a little heated, and Russini cleared the air because when you’re getting a proven quarterback like Rodgers, why would you not want to take his opinion on the team he is going to play with? The QB, however, had a cold response to end that discussion:

“I didn’t respond to Dianna Russini, I think [that’s what] her name is,” Rodgers said on The Pat McAfee Show that year, adding he’d tell her what he told her colleague, Adam Schefter: “Lose my number.”

But this rant for Rodgers wasn’t just because of his prior equation with Russini, but about the consequences of the whole storyline.

Russini has had one of the 50 ballots for the annual Associated Press/NFL awards and the All-Pro team since 2022, a year before she left ESPN for The Athletic. While it didn’t really affect Rodgers, Vrabel was the Coach of the Year last season with the New England Patriots. While AP has not cleared the air, questions have not stopped popping up. But Rodgers also minds how the media chooses to cover certain stories.

Aaron Rodgers’ real issue is with media coverage

Just take the example of how, after five years of the pandemic, Rodgers is still asked whether he got vaccinated. And then there’s the topic of giving someone enough power.

Remember when in 2021, Rodgers didn’t look anything like the reigning league MVP? The Packers had already drafted Jordan Love to take over his spot under center instead of bringing in some receiving help. Despite the hurdles, Rodgers soon found his groove.

He ended that season 13-3 with the league-best numbers in multiple categories to get the better of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Tom Brady in the MVP race. Yet, Herb ‘Hub’ Arkush from Chicago Football publicly revealed that he would not give Rodgers his vote over his personal belief on how the quarterback was as a person. Rodgers did not take any time to thrash that narrative down.

“His problem isn’t with me being a bad guy or being the biggest j— in the league because he doesn’t know me and doesn’t know anything about me,” Rodgers said back then. “His problem is I’m not vaccinated.

“So, if he wants to go on a crusade and collude and come up with an extra letter to put on the award just for this season and make it the Most Valuable Vaccinated Player, then he should do that.”

And when you look at the context and the controversy that caught many by surprise earlier this year, Rodgers is only wondering why the media chooses to cover certain controversies too much and others not enough. Even the Russini-Vrabel controversy was shut down quickly when it could have had a bigger impact on how the NFL’s titles are chosen.

The Russini-Vrabel controversy

The NFL Community was caught by surprise when Page Six photographed The Athletic’s Dianna Russini with New England Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel at a resort earlier this offseason. The Athletic launched an internal investigation into its senior NFL insider, and Russini left her job in the face of intense scrutiny.

Russini, who held a post with ESPN for eight years, was also one of the voters who chose the league’s MVP players and Coach of the Year.

As for Vrabel, who won the AP Coach of the Year award last season, he sought counseling when the news broke and has since returned to help his team prepare for the season with training camp.

The Athletic’s own review of Russini’s coverage has run for months without a public conclusion. A New York Times report in late June detailed how Russini reached out to Times Company CEO Meredith Kopit Levien before informing Athletic leadership, and how she and Vrabel coordinated their response to the New York Post before either camp went public.

As of last month, a Times Company spokesperson confirmed the investigation “is still ongoing,” and no findings from either The Athletic’s or the Times’ review have been made public since.

For Rodgers, it was another one of his on-air rants that will grab a lot of headlines. While he has already admitted that this was going to be his last season in the NFL, the QB is going out while calling out people for their actions.