MVP-dripping superstar athletes are not extraterrestrials, but they might as well be. Consider Division 1 college football, the gold standard of athletic excellence. Of the tens of thousands of D1’s exceptional athletes—those who happened to perform to greater results and advance to D1 than an estimated one million other competing football players—it’s known that only 1 percent will advance to the NFL. From there, how many players are named league MVP? Well, only one per year. The otherworldly math on this, the odds, are absurd.

Aaron Rodgers, who enters his second season this fall as quarterback for the New York Jets—after spending 18 seasons with the Green Bay Packers—has won the prestigious MVP award a mind-boggling four times, in addition to being crowned Super Bowl champion and its MVP. The guy is insanely talented. The guy will be revered for as long as the league is in business, and that feels somewhat an assurance as the NFL is the world’s highest grossing sport, raking in nearly 20 billion dollars a season. The guy is also stepping onto the turf this season at 40 years old—the oldest active player in the league—an age when many men have conceded the ubiquitous pot belly, the Roman prescription, and the encroaching mid-life crisis.

Yes, Aaron Rodgers is a freak of a human and this is substantiated by his intense physical presence. He’s got deep set eyes that betray a cheeky twinkle, hands that upon shaking feel capable of crumbling cement, and a gracefulness that sees every movement read like the finest of Swiss watchmaking—Rodgers being a brand ambassador and product collaborator with Zenith, the LVMH-owned luxury timepiece brand, and the reason we’re here today.

As he sits down on a couch following our photoshoot, my somewhat seasoned interview-giving nerves feel like they’re approaching the line of scrimmage with crispy wind in my face and the yard markers reading 3rd  and 10. You see, Rodgers is delightfully not a cookie-cutter professional athlete subject, the lot of whom cite God as an explanation for everything (though one can’t mock the sentiment when a given athlete is pulling in nearly $40 million a year—Rodgers’ salary), or they talk about taking things one day at a time, and always thank the fans and their teammates.

No, no. Rodgers’ is a razor sharp mind, one that has seen him land gossipy headlines for contrarian remarks—remarks that, after a half hour of sitting with the guy, digest as though the words likely got misconstrued or errantly contextualized to achieve their click-bait debut. Though he is indeed contrarian. He does toe the line in fascinating ways, and has strong opinions on political topics, cancel culture, pharmaceutical aims, psychedelic journeying, and media misinformation. He’s also been romantically linked to famous actresses.The guy is far from typical, or safe. He is not a compliant bro chucking the pigskin.

And perhaps that’s why he’s a massive success. Rodgers was not hand-picked by the aforementioned Division 1 football machine 20-some years ago. After considering scrapping football altogether when he was passed over by his hopeful university, Florida State—a D1 powerhouse at the time—he stuck with it and ended up playing on a junior college team mere miles from his hometown of Chico, California. My mathematical probabilities previously cited that he go pro, given he started his collegiate career here? Again, preposterous.

But Rodgers, despite only weighing 165 pounds at the time of his collegiate commencement, had that sparkle. Not the mentioned mischievous one observed in his intense eyes, but an exceedingly rare and dynamic skill set met with an unflappable desire to win, to be the best. So he trained and made gains and the rest is statistical history. The rest is the head-shaking phenomenon of those very few people who touch down on planet Earth and make the mark that they do.

At the moment, Rodgers is in the headlines for having missed a questionably mandatory pre-season practice session with the Jets. This is not uncommon amongst stars or those in contract negotiations. Of course, the historical precedent for his having been a mainstream subversive sees the speculation swirl as to where he’s disappeared to. Is he in the jungles of Peru taking ayahuasca? Has he joined RFK Jr.’s campaign as a running mate instead of playing ball? It was silly. Where was Mr. Rodgers in the end? Well, Egypt, for a preseason vacation and walk-about amongst some of mankind’s most notable relics, which many argue could not have been built without the aid of aliens.

Today Rodgers talks about his aid efforts with forest fires in his native Butte County, California, the potential presence of aliens in our day to day, his ongoing collaboration with Zenith, and how the desire to be a champion has always flowed through his veins—like something only cultivable in outer space.

How do you feel your relationship with Zenith has evolved since it commenced?‍

In the beginning, we just had Zoom calls. It was late 2019, early 2020, and that was a wild time for the world. So we were in COVID, and then finally, we went over there in 2021, and that’s when the partnership really sunk in. I got to see the factory and meet the workers and see how it’s all put together and also learn about the history of the company and how they made it through some tough times. I got to meet some amazing people who are lifers with the brand, and the passion that I saw from them really stuck with me. Being over there in Switzerland was quite the experience. From there, we developed a signature limited edition, which is really, really cool. So yeah, it’s been a great partnership.

What do you love about watchmaking or timekeeping in general? What fascinates you about watchmaking?‍

Well, I think watches are classy, so I love the classy nature of a watch, but obviously the technology they’ve figured out is extremely accurate, so I respect that. I respect the fact that they sold their movements to another watch company for a number of years because theirs were far superior.

You hear the word “precision” a lot with watches and watch construction, and obviously there’s a lot of overlap there with professional sports. Where do you see precision at present in your gameplay? 

I’ve always been a precision passer. The West Coast Offense that I grew up in, from Grandfather Bill Walsh on down through Mike McCarthy’s iteration was all about the precision. So, accuracy, timing, and rhythm have always been a part of it. I like that the story of my career arc, especially early in high school to junior college, was that I flew under the radar a little bit, but I always knew that if given the opportunity, I had the talent to get it done. Zenith isn’t the number one brand you think of when you think of watches, but when you look at the actual precision and the timepiece they make, it’s excellence. My game’s always been like that. As a young player, I was not really known, but I knew if I just had the opportunity to get in the mix, I had the skills to get it done. When you get to know those ends of the brand and the history and understand its technology, people can’t help but respect the brand for what it is and how long it’s been around.

How do you feel your relationship to pressure has changed over time?‍

I care a lot less about external pressure. I think when you’re a younger person, you’re way more concerned about how you’re viewed and what people think about you. When you get older, your circle gets smaller, and you give less fucks about what everybody else thinks about you and you let go of some of that pressure. Now, at the same time, I really feel like there’s an important part of pressure I need to harness for me and my playing, and that is the pride and the performance pressure. For anybody who loves the sport and has pride in their performance, you have to feel some pressure, because you care about it, and that’s the good pressure. But the external stuff, all the stuff I used to worry about in my twenties, that’s long gone.

But the internal pressure needs to stay at a certain standard?

I think so. That means you still care about it. Because you have pride in your performance. Because you want to do a good job. There are a lot of people counting on you, just on the field with you, not to mention the millions of fans of your team that expect you to play well, but you want to hold up your end of the bargain with your teammates.

We mentioned you’re featured in the Close Encounters issue. This is a bit of a jump from what we’ve been discussing so far, but what are your thoughts and feelings on extraterrestrial life forms? Are we alone?

Hell no, we’re not alone. There’s no chance. I have a hard time with anybody who dismisses any of it. I think there are movies that have been made that are more documentaries than sci-fi. I think we’ve seen, with some disclosure from the government, that they’ve changed it from “Unidentified Flying Object” to “Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.” UAPs. There’s some crazy technology that exists out there. I believe that if there are as many billions of galaxy possibilities as they tell us, there’s no possible way that we’re here alone. I’ve had my own experiences with some interesting phenomena in the sky. I’ve also watched a lot of Steven Greer’s stuff and the 5E stuff that he did, Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, where they’re actually calling these things in. Very fascinating stuff. I think that in our lifetime, there’ll be some stuff that really blows our mind and we will look back and go, “Remember when this was only a thought and not a reality?

To that end, would you welcome the opportunity to, say, come closer in your encounters with extraterrestrial lifeforms?‍

Oh yeah, I mean, there’s some interesting conspiracies around Project Blue Beam that people have talked about for a long time, which is the faking of an invasion using holographic technology—hopefully for a very benevolent encounter. I think many of the beings that exist in the galaxy are benevolent, but, with every good, there’s a polar opposite in evil. That’s duality, but in the polarity, there’s light and dark. So I’m sure there are some benevolent beings out there that love us and care about us, and some who don’t give a shit about us. Hopefully it’s the benevolent kind.

You’ve recently participated in some post forest fire advocacy. What’s your relationship like with nature and how can you describe coming to those decisions, from a charitable or a messaging kind of standpoint?

I’ve been involved with an organization called the North Valley Community Foundation, which is in Butte County where I grew up. I went to high school and junior college there and I still have a lot of close ties to the area. In the North State, we’ve really gone through some tough times, starting with the Santa Rosa fire, the fire in Redding, and then the campfire in Paradise, which was just a few minutes from where I grew up. In the first two, I was loosely involved, and then when the campfire hit, because it was so close to home, I made a sizable donation and have continued to. Thankfully, a couple of my partners at the time added on to our offset fund that we had to help out with the relief and rebuilding efforts. I enjoy helping out those communities. I spend a lot of time in nature. Whether I’m grounding on a beach or in the ocean or walking through the redwoods, I feel a close connection to myself and to whatever idea about God that I have.

Presumably some of that extraterrestrial phenomena in the sky was more likely to have occurred in a natural context as opposed to a city?

A hundred percent. Unless we’re talking about nuclear power plants that get a lot of sightings, a lot of this happens in rural areas. Just sitting out in the night sky, we can see a lot of stars. When we lose the connection to Mother Earth, we lose a big part of ourselves. The destruction that we’re incurring on nature is going to come back and bite us in the ass if we don’t start turning things around and caring about the Earth. Obviously, these forest fires are devastating to the communities in which they live, to the ecosystems as well. Some of them are preventable which is the sad part. Some of these are started by fireworks or a cigarette or just people being stupid which is terrible. The ones that aren’t preventable, from lightning strikes, that’s part of nature and it’s always been that way. But the ones that are preventable are very sad, because some of these places just don’t come back the same.

What are your earliest memories of challenging the social norm?

I feel like it’s always been inside me. When I was at Berkeley, I was inspired by an environment where people were very passionate about their beliefs, but for the most part, they enjoyed dialogue. Down on Sproul Plaza, there were a lot of people talking about a lot of different things, and I enjoyed, during breaks, to go down and listen on the fringe to see what people were interested in. It allowed me to be as open- minded as possible because I think the only way we can grow together as a society is to listen to people that we don’t agree with and try to find common ground or have a debate that’s civil. Unfortunately, there’s such a lack of civil debate between people who disagree on things. There’s canceling and name- calling and censoring instead of understanding why people believe in certain things.

Another problem is that so many people’s identities have been tied to their belief system. Instead of just being ideas, their identity becomes their belief. So if you question someone about something, it’s questioning their entire being and creates a triggering response instead of going, “Well, you believe this but maybe there’s some room for growth. Here’s another perspective of something.”

My first time challenging my own social norms based  on my own conditioning—and I say that very gently, not disrespecting my own conditioning or the environment I grew up in—was with organized religion. From an early age, I would say junior high, something felt off. Going against the social norms of that time was to go against the religion I grew up in, or even just question it, because questioning it was like heresy. I would say that was the earliest memory of me challenging the status quo within the family, within the church community, saying, “I don’t know if I believe everything this person said, and I don’t know if this person is the right role model for me.”

How do you think we got to that place where the self is so intertwined with ideas?‍

I think part of it is that we lost our connection to nature and as we did that, we became very self centered. Self centered is a word that’s aligned with narcissistic behavior and entitlement. When you increase entitlement and narcissism, then everybody believes that their opinion is the only thing that matters and they’re absolute in their belief system. Society has gone down a path where everybody is connected to their phones and disconnected from each other. Back in the day, you had to remember phone numbers. I can still remember some of my phone numbers.

I think back to my college experience and everybody was present and communicating and talking. Nobody was on their phone. Nobody was taking pictures of each other. There were very unique experiences that were had—connection. Intimate connection. I’m not talking about sexual intimacy. I’m talking about intimate drop-ins with people. There were just more people who were present. Now, the attention span is like that [snaps]. That’s why all these videos [on social media] are a minute or less.

Identity is tied to ideas or feelings, and we’re just not connected like we used to be. We don’t treat each other the same way. There seems to be some powers that want us to be more divided. I would say, in general, the loudest 10 percent of people on social media make up 10 percent or less of the population. When I travel to other countries, I find people to be incredibly kind and generous and loving. If you just got your opinions from a social media platform, you would think that more people hated each other, that more people were highly racist, more people wanted to eliminate certain ideas or beliefs or people from society. I don’t find that to be the truth, but that’s what’s fed on some of these news channels on both sides. I think that’s really sad.

What’s your relationship to the mythology of the quarterback, which is historically a hero, leader, maverick, or risk taker. Do you relate to that?

I do, yeah, I really do. It’s a suit you put on. I’m much more introverted in my personal life, but you cannot really be that as a quarterback. You have to put on your cape and go out there and be a hero and be a maverick and be a leader. I really enjoy that. That’s what I always wanted to do. I was six years old watching the TV, watching Joe Montana drive down the field and win the 1989 Super Bowl against the Bengals, and I said, “That’s what I want to do.” I want the ball in my hands at crunch time. I want to be the leader. I wanna touch the ball every single play. 

There’s a certain personality that can really, really thrive in that. Some people don’t. But I really love that ability to affect the game, to really be a part of it. When I was a kid playing sports, I always wanted to be in those positions of influence. My favorite players were not role players. It was Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and Joe Montana and Steve Young and Jerry Rice, the pitchers in baseball, the goal scorers in soccer, that’s what I wanted to do. So I played forward in soccer, pitched in baseball, played point guard in basketball, and played quarterback, because I wanted to be a part of the action. It’s a great power, a great responsibility. Now, with the attention that we have on our sport which is worldwide, there’s a ton of criticism not just on your job performance anymore. The game has changed a little bit, but at its core, it’s everything that I always wanted to be, that guy with all the responsibility and all the opportunity.

What is the importance of self inquiry and philosophical evolution?

That’s one thing I really try to check myself on—how tightly I hold my beliefs, how much I’m living outside of an echo chamber. I think, based on some of the algorithms on social media and just tendencies now for people, we live in an echo chamber that reinforces our beliefs and actually makes us hold tighter to them which makes us less open, less of a critical thinker, less of an open- minded person. Self inquiry is akin to a growth mindset, and the medicine journeys that I’ve done and the work I’ve done, I wish I had known a lot of these lessons earlier in life. At the same time, I’m thankful. I’m thankful for how I was raised. I’m thankful for the struggles I went through. I’m thankful for the experiences. I’m thankful for the many, many failures because you learn lessons on the other side. It comes not from a lack of satisfaction, but a desire to adapt and evolve.

I think that’s a strong delineation between people who are never satisfied, chasing after this idea of perfection, which I don’t think ever allows you to truly enjoy life. To be able to desire, to adapt and evolve will take you down some paths where you’re going to have some failures, you’re going to have some frustrations, you’re going to have major heartbreak and heartache, but in the end, you’re going to find your way back to yourself. There’s a lot of people who are playing other people, but nobody can play you better than you. How do I figure out how to love myself unconditionally and be gentle with myself and accept myself just as I am, with also the desire to grow and adapt and evolve and better myself? That, I think, is a great balance that I’ve tried to find. I’m thankful for all the mistakes I made along the way. 

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Photographed by Kurt Iswarienko

Styled by Tom Soluri

Written by Matthew Bedard

Grooming: Julia Dalton-Brush

Production Assistant: Ella Brignoni