Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers blasted what he called "house arrest" on Friday, saying that the country needs to get back to work since so many people are suffering with unemployment and depression.
In his first conference call with Wisconsin reporters since the Packers drafted quarterback Jordan Love in the first round of last month's NFL Draft, Rodgers was asked whether he believed that professional and college sports should return.
"For many of us--and I've seen a lot of comments on this and obviously my story coming back from Peru before the country kind of went into a lockdown--I think we all were buying into the idea of quarantine to flatten the curve and I think there are a lot of questions now that it's more of a house arrest to find a cure with people wondering exactly what that means as far as the future of the country and the freedoms we're allowed to have at this point," Rodgers answered.
After noting that sports "has always been something that brings people together" and discussing the success of ESPN's documentary series "The Last Dance" and the return of MMA as evidence that there is a tremendous appetite for the return of sports, Rodgers discussed the devastating impact that the country's months-long lockdown has had.
"I'm very hopeful that we can have a [football] season," he said. "I think the important think to think about, though, which is more important than that is the state of the country and the fact that we have 36-plus million people on unemployment right now, we have rising poverty levels to go along with the unemployment, you have suicide hotline is up 8,000 percent. There's really a lot of problems going on in the country right now associated with the fear around this pandemic and I hope that we can use some common sense moving forward and make decisions that are going to be in the best interest of all people moving forward, and I hope that sports is a part of that at some point.