Cal Sports Report

Aaron Rodgers Loses Out to Tom Brady for Top NFL ESPY Award

But the former Cal quarterback still has won the ESPY award for Best NFL Player more times than anyone else, including Brady

Jake Curtis

Aaron Rodgers Loses Out to Tom Brady for Top NFL ESPY Award
Aaron Rodgers Loses Out to Tom Brady for Top NFL ESPY Award /

Former Cal quarterback Aaron Rodgers lost out to Tom Brady. Again.

Rodgers was named the 2020 NFL MVP, but his Packers lost to Brady’s Buccaneers in the NFC championship game.

And on Saturday night, Brady won the 2021 ESPY award for Best NFL player. Brady beat out three other nominees for the award – Rodgers, Los Angeles Rams defensive lineman Aaron Donald and Tennessee Titans running back Derrick Henry.

Despite Saturday’s result, Rodgers still has won the ESPY for Best NFL Player more times than anyone else. Rodgers has won it four times -- 2011, 2012, 2015, 2017 – and this was the third win for Brady, tying him with Peyton Manning for the second-most ESPY awards in this category.

Brady, who won his seventh Super Bowl in 2020, also won the 2021 ESPY for Best Male Athlete, a category for which Rodgers was not nominated. In that category, Brady topped Connor McDavid of the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers, Nikola Jokic of the NBA’s Denver Nuggets, and Formula One auto-racing champion Lewis Hamilton.

It was Brady's first win in the Best Male Athlete category after being nominated three previous times.  Rodgers has been nominated for Best Male Athlete at the ESPYS three times without a victory.

The televised version of the ESPY awards show was delayed three hours on the West Coast, so the winners were old news by the time the show was televised on tape-delay in California, Oregon and Washington at 8 p.m. Pacific time.

Click here for all the ESPY award winners

Rodgers spent Saturday in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada, participating in the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship Tournament.

And he performed well, although he does not hold the lead:

Rodgers remains on the Packers’ roster, but there is no guarantee he will play for the Packers in 2021.

He has said for months he no longer wants to play for the Packers, but the Packers have said they won’t trade him.

Rodgers, the 2020 NFL MVP, did not attend the Packers’ voluntary offseason training activities (OTAs) or their mandatory three-day minicamp in June.

It remains to be seen whether he will attend the first day of the team’s preseason camp on July 27, but most observers expect him to be a no-show. Then the question becomes, how long will he hold out, and would he sit out the entire 2021 season if he is not traded.

Rodgers offered no hints of intentions when questioned about it during The Match, a televised charity golf event in which he and Bryson DeChambeau defeated Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson. Rodgers just said, “I don’t know, we’ll see.”

During the offseason he was a guest host of “Jeopardy!” – a job he would like to have on a permanent basis -- and had a much publicized vacation in Hawaii with his financee actress Shailene Woodley.

If he does play this year, the questions remain?

Who will he play for?

Will the time away from the practice field during his holdout affect his play?

Will his time away from team meetings affect his preparation if he plays for the Packers?

If he is traded, will he have enough time to absorb the playbook and get used to his new wide receivers?

Can Rodgers, who will be 38 in December, duplicate the level of his 2020 performance after so-so seasons in 2017, 2018 and 2019?

On Saturday morning on ESPN's SportsCenter, senior NFL reporter Jeremy Fowler had this to say about where Rodgers might wind up.

"Asking around the league and some people who talked to coaches and people in the Green Bay building, there's no uniform feeling as to whether Rodgers will report. Some are hopeful that he'll show up and others believe that it's just going to bleed well into August and maybe even Week 1. And so, nobody truly knows what's going to happen right now except Aaron Rodgers.”

And sometimes we wonder whether Aaron Rodgers knows for sure where he will be during the 2021 NFL season.

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Follow Jake Curtis of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jakecurtis53

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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