Aaron Rodgers is a Super Bowl champion, a 4-time league MVP, and one of the biggest names in the NFL for the past two decades. In recent years, he’s also been one of the most controversial, with outspoken and heterodox views on science, health and more. Aaron Rodgers: Enigma, a new three-part documentary miniseries on Netflix, takes a look at Rodgers’ complicated life through his own words.
Opening Shot: Aaron Rodgers gets an elaborate tattoo to commemorate changing his jersey number. Then, we cut to a montage of highlights from his career, as he dramatically voices over: “To make it into the league, you have to be talented. In order to stick around in the league, you’ve got to be consistent. In order to thrive and have a long career, you have to do stuff better than everybody else. I live between two worlds of the extroverted alpha leader of the football team, the quarterback, and an introverted lover of silence.” Yeah. It’s gonna be like this.
The Gist: When Aaron Rodgers forced his way off the Green Bay Packers after eighteen seasons with the team, it was huge news–not just for the shift, but for the high expectations he brought to his new team, the New York Jets. Some pegged the team as an instant Super Bowl contender, but those hopes were quickly dashed when Rodgers ruptured his Achilles tendon on his fourth snap in the Meadowlands. Aaron Rodgers: Enigma kicks off with Rodgers rehabbing from that injury. Rodgers is determined to prove he’s still one of the best in the league, but also reflective–and we quickly pivot to an early-career retrospective.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Aaron Rodgers: Enigma brings us face-to-face with celebrated but late-career athlete fighting back from injury for one last big run, while also reflecting on his life and career to date–in that sense, it’s very similar to the 2023 docuseries McGregor Forever, which did the same for MMA fighter Conor McGregor. (This similarity occurred to me even before confirming that both were directed by Gotham Chopra.)
Our Take: If you’ve watched any single-athlete-focus sports documentary on a streaming service in recent years, then you’ll know what you’re in for here. With very few exceptions, productions like this — when they have the full participation of their subjects — are little more than slick informercials for said athlete. It’s clear from the very opening minutes that that’s going to be the case with Aaron Rodgers: Enigma; there aren’t going to be dissenting voices here.
The thing is? Sometimes that still works! Sometimes an athlete’s personal story is compelling enough to overcome the sense that you’re being sold a product. To that end, I’d suggest Giannis: Marvelous Journey, a similarly-structured documentary profiling the life and career of NBA superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Unfortunately for Aaron Rodgers: Enigma (and despite what Rodgers himself surely believes), Aaron Rodgers’ life and career story just isn’t that interesting. That’s not to say that he’s not had an incredibly successful career — he has, undoubtedly! — and that he hasn’t worked through some adversity along the way (he has, but some of it’s been self-inflicted). It’s just nothing that rises to the level of a compelling narrative.
The story is familiar: Rodgers didn’t get interest from major colleges out of high school, so he played a year at community college before getting discovered by Cal head coach Jeff Tedford. He had a great career at Cal, setting NCAA records and lighting up the scoreboard. Many thought he would go #1 overall in the 2005 NFL Draft to his hometown San Francisco 49ers, but he slid all the way to #24, where he’d be stuck sitting behind a legend, incumbent Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre, for three full seasons. It’s a story of determination and delayed gratification, and the fact that Rodgers would put together a Hall of Fame career was far from guaranteed.
Even with all that said, Aaron Rodgers: Enigma suffers from something that plagued Tom Brady: Man in the Arena (also directed by Gotham Chopra)–all of those biggest and best beats are already well-known to the sports fans who might care, and they end up playing like an especially-illuminated Wikipedia article.
This all plays out before we even delve into the controversy that swirled around Rodgers’ refusal to receive a COVID vaccine, and his obfuscations when discussing his vaccination status. Admittedly, that does make Rodgers different than many athletes, but regardless of your feelings on the matter, it doesn’t really make for compelling television in 2024. We’ve had this conversation plenty.
I’ve mostly focused on the negative here, so I’ll concede: like McGregor Forever and Tom Brady: Man in the Arena, Aaron Rodgers: Enigma is a slicky-produced and tightly-directed piece of filmmaking. It doesn’t feel slapdash, and that’s not always a given with streaming sports documentaries. Ultimately, though, you’re going to have to be a big fan of Aaron Rodgers to get something out of it.
Sex and Skin: None, other than some ankles getting rubbed down in rehab.
Parting Shot: Rodgers seals his legacy with an MVP performance in Super Bowl XLV, leading the Packers to victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers. Achieving this goal–the ultimate goal of any kid who’s ever picked up a football–is a huge step in Rodgers’ life, but as he recalls, it left him at a personal crossroads. “Now I’ve accomplished the only thing I really wanted to do in my life… now what?”
Sleeper Star: I could not have been more delighted to see Marshawn Lynch show up to talk about his Cal teammate. I would have preferred that the whole documentary be narrated by Marshawn Lynch.
Most Pilot-y Line: “I was thinking, ‘oh sweet, I get to learn from this guy who my favorite quarterback post-Montana/Young era, which’d be pretty awesome’.” Rodgers reflects on getting drafted to play behind Brett Favre, “but he wasn’t super juiced on the idea of them drafting a quarterback in the first round, so… the first year was a little icy.”
Our Call: SKIP IT. Aaron Rodgers: Enigma might be slickly-produced and tightly-directed, but ultimately–like Rodgers–it doesn’t have as much to say as it thinks it does.
Scott Hines, publisher of the widely-beloved Action Cookbook Newsletter, is an architect, blogger and proficient internet user based in Louisville, Kentucky.