Aaron Rodgers may be injured but he's still very, very weird.
The Jets quarterback just had surgery to repair the ruptured Achilles that will keep him out for the rest of the season. He still made his appearance on the Patt McAfee Show on Friday. During that appearance, he had some interesting comments about dolphins.
No, not the NFL team. Literal dolphins and their...ahem...mating habits.
“I didn’t really want to mention this, but I’m looking into a number of different modalities,” Rodgers said, per the New York Post. “Well, there’s ideas that some of the noises from the dolphins, when they’re lovemaking, the frequency of that is actually healing to the body."
“So you’re just sticking that Achilles up, sitting on your back porch, just ‘go ahead and hump your way, whistling into my Achilles getting healed’?" McAfee joked in response.
Laughter followed from everyone on the show and the crowd around them, but on the internet there were also some questions.
NFL Twitter embraces Aaron Rodgers' Dolphin healing idea with hilarious memes
Aaron Rodgers says the sounds of dolphins copulating is tied to healing and I do not know if he's joking honestly.
— Laura Albanese (@AlbaneseLaura) September 15, 2023
Aaron Rodgers On the @PatMcAfeeShow: "I hoped this wouldn't come up..." proceed to say 'the sound dolphins make when having sex has healing properties'...
— Cass Anderson (@casspa) September 15, 2023
Me, thinking he has to be joking, goes straight to Google to see what Aaron Rodgers has been up to: pic.twitter.com/8xWKFgjG1s
“Just act like I’m not here,” #Jets QB Aaron Rodgers yelled to the two Dolphins. https://t.co/PBEPV8yNL0 pic.twitter.com/zljavS63Ml
— Ryan Talbot (@RyanTalbotBills) September 15, 2023
Aaron Rodgers went on national tv and said he listens to dolphin porn noises because it will heal him and nobody was even a little bit surprised. This is where we are in the year of our Lord 2023
— James Korsmo (@TTSO_James) September 15, 2023
Are you... watching dolphin pornography?!?...
— Magnus Chhan 🍥 (@MagnusChhan) September 15, 2023
Aaron Rodgers: IT'S HEALING MY BODY, DAMN IT!!! https://t.co/tuqxu9P9Y7
Every dolphin: "Lose my number. Good try, tho." #AaronRodgers https://t.co/xiS7meZRwV
— SkolTroll (@STrollkallamik) September 15, 2023
To summon all of the loudest dolphins in the area, Rodgers simply tweeted out "Justin Herbert" https://t.co/xofhg38fr7
— Justis Mosqueda (@JuMosq) September 15, 2023
I once heard a wild rumor a few years back that Rodgers was obsessed with that incident where Margaret Howe Lovatt attempted to teach a dolphin English and ended up having sex with it. I always thought it was just a joke but uhhh. https://t.co/gFR8Zacnum
— Jean-Michel Connard 🎃 (@torriangray) September 15, 2023
Honestly, I don't know if this is a joke either. Rodgers knows his reputation well enough to know he could drop this joke and people would believe it. And it's objectively funny. But some of his beliefs are out there enough for those people to have good reason to believe this is one of them.
And frankly, I was not willing to do more than a reluctant, surface-level google search of "Dolphin mating sounds healing powers." Indeed there are a lot of websites out there claiming the sounds made by dolphins have therapeutic powers. National Geographic ran a piece exploring the controversial world of dolphin therapy in 2021. The mating element of this is the most dubious part of Rodgers' reference.
Rodgers ruptured his Achilles on the fourth play of his Jets career. He faces a long rehab process ahead of him. If he believes the sounds of dolphins mating can help him, then more power to him. The placebo effect is real.