Aaron Rodgers, in his weekly spot on the Pat McAfee Show, stood up for his new home stadium amid players voting MetLife Stadium the worst place in the NFL to play, while drawing heavy criticism for its turf surface being a catalyst for lower-body injuries.
“There’s a lot worse places than MetLife. I can promise you that,” Rodgers said. “I can give you a lot of stadiums that are s--tholes, comparatively.”
Rodgers tore his Achilles at MetLife just four snaps into his Jets tenure, and on Friday, he was on the sidelines when Dolphins linebacker Jaelen Phillips tore his, becoming the latest high-profile NFL name to suffer the injury this season.
“When I saw the injury on the field, I was pretty confident it was his Achilles,” Rodgers said of Phillips’ injury against Gang Green on Friday. “I walked onto the field, and based off his emotion and reaction, I think he knew it…I said something like ‘I know what you’re going through. It’s gonna be OK.’
“I don’t remember this many big-name guys doing it. You talk about Kirk [Cousins], the season he was having, and Jaelen, J.K. Dobbins…there’s been a lot of guys. I don’t know. There’s always gonna be conversations around the surfaces, but I’m not sure.”