ON A WARM OCTOBER evening in Green Bay, Wis-consin, Aaron Rodgers—the Packers quarterback these past 18 years, a four-time NFL MVP, and, lately, the subject of some odd and intriguing news stories—is clambering up the stairs at a place called Three Three Five, a dimly lit, semiprivate bar and supper club with a 10,000-bottle wine-and-whiskey cellar, craft cocktails, and farm-to-table fare popular with Packers players. It’s really nice—the upper-Midwest version of a cool, exclusive speakeasy. Upstairs is a library, a salon for billiards and darts, and private rooms suitable for both small social gatherings and the thing that has brought Rodgers here on a Monday, just 24 hours after a beatdown by the New York Jets at Lambeau Field: interviews.
He’s just finished two hours of interviews and photo shoots downstairs, a mini junket for Zenith, the Swiss watch company for which he is a brand ambassador and the face of its Chrono-master Sport model. Now he’s here for one last one-on-one before heading home to sleep—sleep is so important.
Rodgers limps a little. It’s been a so-so season for the Packers, and yesterday’s 27–10 loss was their second in a row (and would turn out to be the second of five straight). His right hand—at the end of his golden right arm, which landed him the $151 million contract he signed in March that runs until 2025, when he’ll be 41—looks bruised and swollen.
Last night he did his usual postgame recovery routine: a glass of Scotch and a rest on his BioMat, a heated pad filled with amethyst crystals that is an FDA-approved anti-inflammatory aid. Then, this morning, a Graston rubdown—a deep, soft-tissue treatment using a metal edge that’s like foam rolling to the power of ten—and a sauna. He used to have a hyperbaric chamber at home so he could breathe in elevated levels of oxygen
