Packers’ Aaron Rodgers starts Monday as ‘Jeopardy!’ guest host. Get a sneak peek.
Great athletes seemingly have the ability to slow things down in their minds during big moments in a game.
That’s what three-time NFL MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers did earlier this year, but it wasn’t during the Packers playoff games. No, this came during his stint as a guest host on “Jeopardy!”
“The biggest thing that I just wanted to think about was slowing down,” Rodgers said in an interview on the “Jeopardy!” YouTube page. “I think the nerves come up, especially during the first few games, when I really felt I had some problems with some other clues, reading them.
“I ended up writing on my podium just some kind of code words: ‘Slow down.’ ‘Relax.’ ‘Speak clearly.’ ”
Did Rodgers succeed in that? Viewers will decide for themselves as he begins a guest host starting Monday. The first episode will air at 2 p.m. on Fox 4.
Rodgers filmed the episodes in February and said he used the same calming exercises he does as a player.
“I like to do it before games on the field, before two-minute drives,” Rodgers said. “It’s called box breathing. You have a rhythmic breathing structure that helps to lower your heart rate. The same amount of seconds you inhale, you hold, and you exhale and hold.
“What it does is really relaxes your system. ... I was doing that just because there were times when I was like, ‘Oh my God, this is real. I’m really going out. And I have to like take us on this journey to trivia land, and get us from where we’re at to the end of the show. How am I going to do that?’”
Rodgers, who won “Celebrity Jeopardy!” in 2015, said he’s been a fan of the show since he was a little kid watching with his grandparents.
In preparation for his guest hosting gig, Rodgers studied Alex Trebek, the longtime host who passed away in November.
“I watched hours and hours and hours of episodes,” Rodgers said in an interview with ESPN’s Rob Demovsky. “Luckily Netflix has a few seasons, and I went back to DVR. But I had to watch from a different perspective — from Alex’s perspective. I couldn’t watch it as a fan anymore.
“I took pages and pages and pages of notes. I wrote down every affirmative that he said to any type of clue. I wrote down how he would respond if they didn’t get it right. I wrote down beat points of the show. I wrote down all the different ways he would take it to break. I wrote down the stuff that he said coming out of break. Literally, I studied for this like no other. I wanted to absolutely just crush it.”
Here is a look at Rodgers at the dais, where he will be hosting the show:
This is the interview Rodgers did that was shared on the “Jeopardy!” YouTube page:
This story was originally published April 5, 2021 at 10:03 AM with the headline "Packers’ Aaron Rodgers starts Monday as ‘Jeopardy!’ guest host. Get a sneak peek.."
