HUB HAS MORE RINGS
Remorseful Arkush got more support, less venom about Rodgers than he was expecting from callers to his show
Hub Arkush had just completed three hours of what amounted to selfadmonishment.
“I was wrong,” Arkush said multiple times during his 6-9 p.m. show Wednesday on 670 The Score.
The station’s NFL expert kept apologizing for making denigrating remarks about Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers the day before. His words had gone viral, reaching places on the internet he didn’t know existed.
But for most of the show, he opened the phone lines, anticipating a flood of venom for saying he won’t give Rodgers his vote for NFL MVP because Rodgers kept the team in limbo all offseason and lied about being vaccinated against COVID-19.
“I’m still a little troubled that every caller was calling to support me,” Arkush said with a laugh after the show. “Because that doesn’t happen on The Score. So I’m not sure what to make of that.”
To be sure, Arkush took his share of criticism in those three hours. But he said that was the point.
“My only mission was to try and undo any possible stain that I would have put on the votes or the awards or my fellow voters,” he said. “I’ve literally just been sick about that.”
Arkush hasn’t listened back to what he said on the “Parkins & Spiegel” show Tuesday. But he has heard enough about it to realize that “a couple of things about Rodgers were completely inappropriate, sophomoric. It’s just not me.”
He called Rodgers “the biggest jerk in the league” and said “I don’t think a bad guy can be the most valuable guy at the same time.”
Criticism of that nature has never been Arkush’s style. But like a quarterback taking every question from reporters after throwing a costly interception, he took the heat.
Coming out of one commercial break, producer Brandon Fryer played Rodgers’ response to Arkush’s remarks. The four-time MVP called Arkush “a bum,” suggested he should be excluded from future votes and said he never had met or been interviewed by Arkush. (Arkush actually has interviewed Rodgers many times on the field after games for Westwood One, but he didn’t expect Rodgers to remember.)
That was the first time Arkush had heard Rodgers’ retort, and, like everything else in this saga, it took him by surprise.
“I think that the guy was obviously hurt,” Arkush said. “Honestly, I was surprised that he said that much and