It may not have been a flight into darkness, but Aaron Rodgers and WFAN’s Greg Giannotti neatly cleared their hands Tuesday morning from last year’s “most awkward, worst” interview.
Rodgers performed live with “Boomer & Geo” during Jets training camp, and the trio appears to have made amends after last year’s embarrassing incident.
“Thank you, Aaron. This was much better than last year. I couldn’t forget about that interview last year for a whole year, but now I feel like I’ve been cleansed,” Giannotti said after the roughly 30-minute interview at the Jets’ facility in Florham Park, N.J. “I needed this interview, so thank you.”
Giannotti and partner Boomer Esiason interviewed Rodgers last year ahead of his first season with Gang Green, and the interview was nearly as well-received as the quarterback’s debut with the team.
Rogers had arrived late to the interview because of traffic jams and was in a bad mood because of it.
This created an acrimonious interview atmosphere, with Rogers refusing to answer questions about the mansion he purchased in New Jersey.
The experience left a bad taste in Giannotti’s mouth, with the host recently describing the incident as “the most awkward, worst 18 minutes” in the show’s seven-year history.
“Given what happened last year, I would rather have Aaron Rodgers interviewed than us,” Giannotti told stand-in host John “Staggots” Weiner in late July.
“And I’m serious about that. I don’t need to go at it again. It’s okay. Honestly, you take it. I don’t need to interview him again.”
He added: “I don’t think he ever looked at us. Not once… It was a combination of everything. He was angry and we were panicking because he wasn’t listening to us. It was all a turd in a blender.”
Tuesday’s interview started on a “much better” note, Esiason said, as Rodgers emerged with a smile on his face after an uneventful commute to work.
“Last year, you guys probably don’t remember, but we do, because it’s forever etched in my memory. We walked into the store, we were stuck in traffic for like two hours, there were three tractor-trailers that were jackknife-ing, we walked into the store… sat down, we couldn’t stand it,” Giannotti said. “So today, we have big smiles on our faces…
“I wasn’t (satisfied),” Rogers expressed his frustration. “Life is good if you do it well. Now I don’t even get on the freeway in the morning. I can just take a quick drive, listen to whatever music I want, and feel good when I’m in my car. I’m not sitting in traffic for a minute. It’s always moving, there are nice side streets, the occasional stop sign, people walking their dogs. It’s not just the freeway (truck beeps twice), it’s chaos. Yeah.”
With Rodgers in good spirits, the segment covered a variety of topics, including his highly publicized trip to Egypt, his upcoming autobiography, an excerpt of which was published exclusively by The Washington Post, and whether he thinks preseason training is necessary to return from a ruptured Achilles tendon.
At the end of the interview, Giannotti thanked Rodgers, but the four-time MVP acknowledged that it takes two to dance the tango and make a terrible radio show.
“Look, that’s not you,” Rogers said. “It’s not you.”
Giannotti responded: “Well, part of it was. It was all our fault. It was a collective effort. We were in a bad mood. We were in a terrible situation.”
