Rodgers Gets Out of Peru with Minutes to Spare

Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers called out Kirk Herbstreit for "fear-mongering" for saying he'd be "shocked" if there were football in the fall.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – Aaron Rodgers said he and three friends almost were stranded in Peru nine days ago because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Have you seen the movie, ‘Argo’?” Rodgers, appearing on the “Pat McAfee Show” on Friday, asked the hosts, McAfee and former teammate A.J. Hawk. “The scene at the end where they're racing to the airport. Nobody was chasing us, thankfully, or holding us, and we didn’t have to speak Farsi to get back into the country. But there were some moments where we worried we were not going to get out. It was absolute pandemonium at the airport.”

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Ultimately, the Peruvian government sealed its borders on March 21, so Rodgers might have been in the clear. Still, with a nationwide curfew in effect and a state of emergency declared, it was a high-stress situation for all foreign visitors.

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“When we rolled up to the airport at like 7 in the morning, it was wall-to-wall people and you couldn't move,” Rodgers said. “I was thinking, ‘This isn't very safe.’ Not many masks on, and there was definitely a panic in the air. But somehow [we] made it through, and then they shut the airport down because it was really bad weather. They had a drop-dead time where they were going to shut the entire airport down. We made it by about 15 minutes.”

Rodgers and the others from his group, who were exploring some of the nation’s remote areas and were about 700 miles from the capital city of Peru, haven’t been ill.

“I think we’re in the clear,” Rodgers said.

Rodgers is back in Malibu, Calif., with his girlfriend, Danica Patrick. Other than some trips to the store, he’s stayed at home. Thursday, at least, was a milestone.

“It was the first time I actually saw toilet paper at the store,” Rodgers said.

Earlier Friday, ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit said he’d be “shocked” if there were football in the fall. Rodgers, however, didn’t see it that way.

“I think it’s a possibility; I don’t think it’s a probability, though,” Rodgers said. “That kind of fear-mongering is not what’s great right now. I think what I worry about is people having some sort of hope in this time.”

So long as people wash their hands and follow other guidelines, Rodgers hopes the curve will be flattened and life will being returning to normal.

NFL training camps will begin in about four months – plenty of time, Rodgers hopes.

“I guess that’s just my optimism,” he said.