Mina Kimes gives a powerful critique of Aaron Rodgers

Mina Kimes is one of the most respected journalists in the sports world right now. The ESPN analyst has navigated through a male-dominated industry as an Asian-American woman, garnered the respect of peers and athletes, and become one of the company's most prized on-air personalities.

Before Kimes became a fixture on ESPN shows like "NFL Live," the Yale graduate and former business writer for Fortune and Bloomberg News was also a writer for ESPN.com. One of her more prominent stories was a 2017 profile on NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who back then was still with the Green Bay Packers and had won just the second of his now four NFL MVP awards.

At the time, Rodgers was one of the faces of the NFL, but his media persona had began to take a hit, as Kimes described in her story.

"As Rodgers kept himself swaddled in bubble wrap, other started to pound away: former teammates and anonymous sources who called him aloof, bloggers who reported on every development in his relationship with actress Olivia Munn. His name, once the province of the sports pages, started to appear with greater regularity in the tabloids," Kimes wrote.

The ESPN analyst wrote that she spent personal time with Rodgers for the story, with the NFL quarterback actually going to her house in Los Angeles for the interview. 

She described him as "unusually cautious" given the media scrutiny. A lot of Kimes' story outlined Rodgers' increasingly hostile relationship with the media.

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That media relationship has now become a firestorm because of Rodgers' stance on several topics, including being anti-vaccine and his adherence to conspiracy theories, which he has talked about publicly on "The Pat McAfee Show," — his biggest platform outside of the NFL — which moved to Kimes' home at ESPN in September.

Kimes hopped on "The Dan Le Batard" show on Tuesday, Jan. 15 to give her thoughts on where Rodgers is today. She started by clarifying that the brief time she spent with Rodgers, and the story she wrote, doesn't exactly make her an expert on him.

"I really hate giving unique insight into any athlete that I've spent like 24 hours with," Kimes said.

She said that beyond the need to talk about Rodgers, it's important to acknowledge that his words have had an influence that she doesn't see as positive. But Kimes also acknowledged that the critique it is less about Rodgers' overall character than it is about the belief system of Rodgers and similar-minded people.

"What is a meaningful thing about this story that transcends sports is sort of the normalization of conspiracy theories," Kimes said. "And I say that not to criticize Rodgers' character, but really just kind of criticize that substance of what he was saying."

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She expanded by saying that she believes that many of the people who are like Rodgers believe they know something that other people don't, and that empowers them.

"It really is groupthink masquerading as independent thought," Kimes said. "I think a lot of us have people in our lives who have gone down similar rabbit holes who are sort of tempted by the idea of feeling like they know something that the rest of us don't. Who, when they're met with skepticism or criticism as Rodgers was — and I think this is at the heart of a lot of this — they doubled down."

Kimes made a point that the fact that a renowned athlete thinks this way is exactly what should be eye-opening to everyone; Again, not questioning Rodgers' character, but instead questioning that someone with such notoriety would have thoughts that were once perceived taboo.

"The fact that that's not just on the fringes is worth noting and it's worth always checking those points when they're made and not just laughing them off the way we often do," Kimes said.

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