My Quarantine Cookbook

March 27th = Thai Style Mussels with Lemongrass (https://www.foodrepublic.com/recipes/thai-style-mussels-with-lemongrass-recipe/)

March 28th = Instant Pot Lamb Korma (https://spicecravings.com/lamb-korma-instant-pot-pressure-cooker)

March 29th = Instant Pot Red Curry Chicken (https://www.paintthekitchenred.com/instant-pot-thai-red-curry/)

April 4th = Instant Pot Jamaican Oxtail (https://www.myforkinglife.com/jamaican-oxtails/)

April 11th = Instant Pot Curry Goat w/ Roti (https://www.thesophisticatedcaveman.com/instant-pot-curry-goat/)

April 17th = Rendang Flank Steak + Carrot 3 ways:

Flank Steak (https://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/grilled-skirt-steak-with-rendang-style-marinade-2827024)

Rendang Marinade (https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/rendang-curry-paste/31c32ae7-5acf-4440-b7cd-70ca3defbc7c)

Carrot Fries: (https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/parsnip-and-carrot-chips-51145000)

Carrot Puree (https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/bright-and-bold-carrot-puree)

April 19th = Spicy Mussels with Ginger and Lemongrass (https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/spicy-mussels-with-ginger-and-lemongrass)

April 24th = Safed Maas + Corn & Carrot Casserole

Safed Maas (https://www.whiskaffair.com/rajasthani-safed-maas/)

Corn & Carrot Casserole (https://theskinnyishdish.com/skillet-creamy-corn-carrot-casserole/)

May 1st = Bo Kho (Vietnamese Beef/Oxtail Stew) + Chickpea & Sweet Potato Red Curry

Bo Kho (https://pupswithchopsticks.com/bo-kho-vietnamese-beef-stew/)

Chickpea & Sweet Potato Red Curry (https://www.averiecooks.com/sweet-potato-chickpea-coconut-curry/)

May 8th = Duck x 2: Duck Leg Confit + Penang Curry Duck Breast

Duck Leg Confit - used only duck legs (https://www.allwaysdelicious.com/duck-confit-recipe/)

Duck Penang Curry - use other recipe for penang curry paste (https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/meat-and-poultry/duck-penang-curry/)

Penang Curry Paste (https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/panang-curry-paste-367765)

May 10th = Beet & Sweet Potato Gratin (https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/beetroot-and-sweet-potato-gratin)

May 15th = Carrot & Corn Soup (http://cookingandbeer.com/2016/06/summer-corn-and-carrot-soup-with-roasted-chickpeas/) **added garam masala & cinammon

May 22nd = Radish Soup + Scallop with Lemongrass + Herb Marinated Lamb w/ Pinot Drizzle

Radish Soup (https://www.nelliebellie.com/creamy-radish-soup/) **added cinnamon & garam

Scallop w/ Coconut & Lemongrass (https://www.feastingathome.com/seared-scallops-coconut-lemongrass-sauce/)

Herb-Marinated Lamb w/ Pinot Drizzle (https://www.honeygheeandme.com/2014/04/herb-marinated-lamb-rib-chops-wsauteed-spinach-sweet-potato-mash-rosemary-pinot-drizzle/)

June 5th = Grilled Watermelon w/ Beet Chips + Sambal Shrimp + Crying Tiger Skirt Steak

Grilled Watermelon (https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/grilled-watermelon-yogurt)

Beet Chips (https://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/air-fryer-beet-chips) ** cut & crumpled

Sambal Shrimp (https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/grilled-shrimp-with-fiery-lemongrass-chile-sambal-353811) **way more sauce than needed, but sauce is very good

Crying Tiger Skirt Steak (https://meatwave.com/recipes/grilled-thai-crying-tiger-skirt-steak-with-jaew-chili-dipping-sauce) **sauce was INCREDIBLE

June 12th = Red Curry Pork Ribs + Lemon/Mint Branzino

Red Curry Pork Ribs (magazine recipe)

Grilled Branzino (https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/geoffrey-zakarian/grilled-branzino-with-basil-lime-and-ginger-3363236)

June 19th = Scallop over Radicchio + Thai Pork Tenderloin + Asian Pork Shoulder

Scallop over Radicchio (https://www.finecooking.com/recipe/seared-scallops-with-warm-radicchio-and-pancetta) **one of the best things I made

Thai Pork Tenderloin (https://houseofnasheats.com/grilled-thai-pork-tenderloin/)

Asian Pork Shoulder (https://omnivorescookbook.com/asian-instant-pot-pulled-pork/) **sauce was amazing

June 21st = Shakshouka (https://downshiftology.com/recipes/shakshuka/)

May 26th = Garam Brussel Sprouts + Beyti Kebab + Hyderabadi Goat Biryani

Garam Brussel Sprouts (https://reneenicoleskitchen.com/garam-masala-brussels-sprouts/)

Beyti Kebab (cookbook recipe)

Hyderabadi Biryani (https://www.indianhealthyrecipes.com/mutton-biryani/) **first recipe

My Top 50 QBs: #5 - Dan Marino

I wasn't around in 1984. I can't imagine what it was like to be around, and see Dan Marino throw for 5,084 yards and 48 TDs. He wans't the first guy to throw for a bunch of yards - Dan Fouts got to the 4,800 yard mark a couple times. But this was more. He was the first person to top 40 TDs, and he topped it by 8, ending with a cool 48 (three per game). We've gone through 4-5 revolutions in football, even if people don't realize it, and this year still stands out as absurd. The TD total stood for 20 years. The yardage total has been topped a few times since, but it took 27 years for that to be done. 

How ludicrous is that? 27 years is how long it took for Drew Brees to best Marino's yardage record (Tom Brady did as well that same season). 27 years is a long, long time in football sense. 27 years before Marino threw for 5,084 yards, was 1957 - when a second year Johnny Unitas led hte NFL is passing with 2,550 yards in 12 games. What Dan Marino did was ridiculous, and is the perfect entry point on his career.

Dan Marino never reached THAT height again because it was near impossible. He did reach great heights, though. Two years later he threw for nearly 4,800 yards, and 44 more TDs. No one period threw for 40 TDs until Kurt Warner did in 1999, and he did it twice. Marino was playing a game no one else did, despite never having the best weapons (good ones, to be sure, but not great), on a team that didn't rise with him but was pulled up by Marino time and time again.

Dan Marino was infamously the fifth QB taken in 1983, but that allowed him to go to Miami, where Don Shula steadied him into a QB machine that had the best start to a career ever. His rookie season himself was the best rookie season for a QB (a 96.0 passer rating, which is like a 105 in today's game). His growth would be astronomic, and while he never got better than 1984, he was so good for so long, for a team that slowly deteriorated around him.

Marino's skills were so apparent, that laser quick release, the ability to hit tiny windows deep down field. One of the more underrated aspects, and one that is another sign of how before his time he was, of Marino's game was his pocket presence and ability to not get sacked. This is one area that he was unquestionably the best ever (maybe until Peyton Manning, but when you adjust for era....). He led the NFL in sack rate 10 times, including the first four years of his career. In 1988, he was sacked 1.0% of his drop-backs. That doesn't even do it justice though. He went 759 snaps without getting sacked. Let me repeat: 759 dropbacks, over a season's worth, without getting sacked. That doesn't make sense. We will almost never see that record even approached.

Dan Marino did not win a Super Bowl. He is the NFL's poster-boy for the 'didn't win the big one.' The NFL's answer to Karl Malone or Charles Barkley. What's nice about Marino is he's never shied away from that label. He has a certain bravado and pride that allows him to wear that supposed dent as a badge of honor. It's not that he's the best QB to not win a Super Bowl, no one else comes close. There are other great QBs who haven't won. They aren't close to Dan Marino.

Marino's stats definitely declined late in his career, as an aging team under the last vestiges of Don Shula and then whatever that Jimmy Johnson Miami period devolved into mediocrity. But even in those years, Marino remained great - with strong numbers, still a super-quick release, and still an ability to just not get sacked. His career is truly the first QB career that reads like a modern QB who played in the pass-happy era (Peyton and onwards). Joe Montana was undoubtedly great, if not greater (and in my rankings, he is), but Montana's career stats page does scream a different NFL when you never approaced 4,000 yards, maybe got to 30 TDs, didn't throw all that deep. Marino's just looks different.

To some degree, Dan Marino's ability to drop back and sling with a great arm, quick release, good vision and pocket presence, is what invented the modern NFL QB. His ability to do this over 500-650 attempts year after year after year has become common-place, but he was the first to really do it and hold that value over a 10+ year career. Dan Marino set the stage for everything to come after him, but the real magic was he did it witha peak ability that no one could touch for 25+ years.

What I'm doing when I'm Not Traveleing

I like to travel a lot. Hell, I picked a job where I traveled for work about 45 weeks of last year, and out of the seven I didn't, I probably traveled on vacation a handful of those as well. I was traveling as recently on March 13th, on a short little flight from Toronto back to New York. I've officially not taken a flight for three months and ten days, probably the longest stretch without flying anywhere since at least 2014 (when I did a project locally). Forget work, I've barely traveled in my own life by car. I've left the state once, with a drive with family over to Philadelphia and Doylestown, Pennsylvania. 

So, what exactly have I done in this time when I've been more homebound than ever before: well, I've gotten to know the area I live in, my new apartment, and cooking a lot, lot more. All the while still dreaming of when I'll be up in the air again - be it for work or for fun.

Getting to know the area around me actually started serendipitously well before the lockdown. Back in February, I was home alone one weekend at it was unnaturally warm for February - maybe 50 degrees or so - and I decided to walk local trails. The first one was one I had walked many times before, the Plainsboro Preserve about half a mile away from my house. I've been there dozens of times. Where I hadn't been to dozen of times, or never to be accurate, was a trail in Princeton, about 15 miles away. 

The first time I went there was because I found it in an app, AllTrails, that lists trails all over the country. It was fairly barren in February, with dead trees and shrubs and slightly melting creaks and lakes. But something about it seemed interesting. So that first week of working at home, it was also unusually warm so I decided to go back. And then I went back and back and back and back. I think at this point I've gone on this trail at least 45 times in the intervening 90 days since this started. It went from barren, to the slight hints of spring, to the first daffodils (that got fairly swiftly eaten), to lush green, to now it being a jungle. 

I started going on teh trail they laid out, then did it in reverse, then added one rocky section, then another rockey section, and turned what was a 45-minute jaunt, to a 1hr10m nice trail up and down and left and right. In the mddle, two geese laid about five eggs which turned into five adorable little goslings. Each time I went, I passed the same geese and goslings, who promptly grew and grew and grew. Probably two months after I first spotted them, they are almost unrecognizable, sheddig their fluff and growing down feathers and looking very much like geese.

That circle of life stuff is actually way more apparent on how quickly the place turned green. I was lamenting in either late April or early May on how barren it still was, how the trees had barely grwn their leaves, how little vegetation there was. In maybe the span of one week, it was unrecognizable. It was amazing.

The other aspect to my time trapped in teh wilderness of being at home, was learning to cook. I mean, I always knew how to follow a recipe and cook a decent meat every few months or so, but cooking has become a weekly tradition. It started at the time we started using our instant pot. I don't remember exactly when it turned into a Friday Night routine - cooking for the famiy. Early on, it was testing out Indian curries in teh instant pot, be it lamb korma, butter chicken, and an amazing Safed Maas (white curry lamb). Then it became trying to test out my plating abilities - with thai flank steak over carrot three ways (roasted, fries, puree), or duck confit as a first course with penang curry duck breast as a second. Or a hree course meal of radish soup, thai scallops, and a malaysian lamb chop.

All these recipes were found online, and I followed nearly word for word, but did add my own flavor - like randomly putting homemade garam masala and honey into random recipes when it didn't cal for it. It was always good though. Cooking became relaxation, even when in the moment it is a whirlwhind of mise en place-ing less than I should leading for cooking in a manner more frenzied than needed. It has become a passion, and one I hope to continue - maybe just not on a Friday Night when there might be othe rmore interesting things to do.

The final aspect that has kept me sane during teh period - and by sane I mean giving me enough to worry about that I forgot the predicament we're all in - is decorating me new apartment. I bought it right before the lockdown started and then waited while every stop got elongated - be it the inspection, the close, etc. Furniture stores all shut-down, forcing Wayfair into my life in a huge way. It really exploded after I found this site called floorplanner.com, which allowed you to at least place furniture and visualize in 3D. I spent hours on that thing. Bit by bit the actual house has come together - apart from maybe the biggest purchases such as a bed, mattress or couches - or a fervently overpriced half-barrel.

In that house is a kitchen that is nowhere near as large or as well stocked as the one at home, but I do have a freezer that hosts some goat. I yearn for the day I can cook in that house, and put into ation the lessons and skills I developed during this time, followed by maybe a hike to a random point in New Jersey - a place in the only state I ever called home. In some ways no one will ever forget this pandemic and lockdown, but for me, it is not only remembering the dread and the drear but also the fun, the nature, the seasons, the cooking and a new house to fill those memories with.

An Ode to Somebody Feed Phil

I watched a few episodes of Somebody Feed Phil way back when the first season came out two years ago. I liked it then. I mean, what's not to like. You get a weirdly entertaining funny guy traipse around random cities, tasting so much incredible food, from street stalls up through to Michelin star restaurants.

But for whatever reason, and maybe it is because I can't travel anywhere, watching it again after its third season came out has made me love it way more.

I've only watched Bourdain's show in passing, and regular food tourism shows aren't always for me. But for some reason, Phil Rosenthal, and more-so the way the show is produced to focus on all types of food with a little souisant of culture, is just perfect. Also, I am so damn envious of the whole thing. Here's a guy who started a food show because he was tired of sitting on his ass on top of his hundreds of millions (he's the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond). He loves to eat, so he basically self created a food tourism show.

What's also great about it (before we get to the actual food) is that Rosenthal is so damn nice and personable. He finds friends everywhere, he keeps everyone around him at ease. He sits with random friends, food bloggers, world class chefs, and they all treat him the same. What was really nice is the few times he breaks the wall and offers a nugget or a drink to his cameraman - or even bring his producers to a seafood feast in Lisbon. Yes, at times he corny, but he's also pure hilarity throughout. And he has such a damn good yearning to eat good food. It is clear either every place he goes to is well researched, or the bad places get edited out, but he loves all the food - and to be fair it looks great.

The food though is the star, and what I truly love about the show is how well it does at showcasing all types of food. Take his episode in Lisbon (granted from teh first season of the show). In the episode, he ate at the following:

• two-michelin star restaurant in the heart of Lisbon
• food market
• seafood restaurant on a picturesque pier
• famous place that only serves Pastel de Natas
• Incredble home-style seafood restaurant
• Goan-Portuguese restaurant
• random neighborhood with an Italian gelato shop, pizza place and an Austrian sausage shop
• two-michelin star restaurant in a suburb
• Fado house

If you want fancy, well plated beauty, there was two places. If you want homestyle or more down-to-earth restaurants, there was three places. if you want desert there were a couoe of places. If you want stalls or grab-and-go there were a few places. It is incredible how well he mixes all types of restaurants and food.

This is the same in all episodes, and what I can definitely say is that the show has really made me want to go to places (or in the case of a Tel Aviv or Mexico City, go back) because of this. Now, it helps that one of my key ingredients of any trip is good food, but seeing Buenos Aires (again, a couple uber-fancy places, but also one place - Peron Peron - that I want to live in) or Marrakech, or even the titular Lisbon, which I went to last when I was 10, makes me want to go there instantly.

The complex mix of an entertaining host who you can tell is enjoying himself so damn much (quick aside, how the hell is he so thin?), locations that are interesting and shot in a great way, a brilliant mix of restaurants across class, cuisines and price, you truly get an amazing food tourism show. I hope this multi-hundred-millionaire keeps his passion project going for years and years to come.

My Top-50 QBs of All Time: #6 - Drew Brees

#6 - Drew Brees

Judging Drew Brees's career will be one of the more interesting challenges 15-20 years from now. He is a statistical marvel who teamed up with a coach and offensive wizard who opened up the NFL. Peyton Manning led the groundwork, and Drew Brees combined that with volume like we have never seen to put up the most voluminous period of Quarterbacking ever. Drew Brees is unlike any QB in history. He made a sprited run at Dan Marino's long-standing record for passing yards in a season in 2008, falling just 14 yards short of tying Marino's mark. No matter, he ended up smashing in three years later, compiling 5,476, and then broke the old Marino mark two more times. Its now surprising the few times he hasn't approached that mark. It is hard to think of comparable players in other sports, players that have put up absurd numbers that don't really make sense when taken out of context. 

This is clearly the steroid era of passing statistics, though the reasons are far more above board than they were in baseball. Well, if you want to put up a Barry Bonds, it probably is Peyton Manning, a QB who was already brilliant before 2011 – the real ‘Year 0’ of the change – but if anything Brees is a Alex Rodriguez. Skeptics could say he was Sammy Sosa, a player who turned great once the game was made easier, but that is being unfair. Drew Brees has proven himself as more than a function of a system and a league that endorsed opening up the game. He is the one who led that fight to do just that, to challenge convention by throwing, and throwing, and throwing.

The criticisms of Drew Brees are readily available. He is not a ‘winner’, as while his playoff record is decent (8-8), what is more glaring is the amount of times a team QBed by Drew Brees for a meaningful portion of the season (> 12 games) failed to make the playoffs – a startling 7 times. If anything, that is the biggest detraction for Drew Brees, that even as passing statistics and efficiency – which Brees is credited with holding over 600+ attempts – correlate well with regular season success, Brees is the negative outlier. The other criticisms are context driven, such as pinging him for playing in a dome, or only succeeding once paired with Sean Payton; whoever almost all QBs are generally better at home than on the road, and we have no real evidence to say Payton is more important to the Saints passing success than Brees. The final criticism is Brees’s penchant for throwing bad picks. When viewed against the sheer amount of times he throws, it actually isn’t that bad, but Brees does throw some bad ones. He’s not perfect; no one is. But he is far closer to perfect than most.

At their peak, the Saints offense seemed wholly unstoppable. The statistics the entire offense rolled up in 2011, a season when they set the record for total yards (7,474), including an 8-game stretch to end the season, including playoffs, where they rolled up 4,203 yards (525 / game). They were the closest thing the league had seen to the Greatest Show on Turf, wholly unstoppable unless they turned the ball over. Each performance was more ridiculous than the next, as they scored 42-45-45-45 in four straight games. The final one was a Wild Card win over the Lions, where they scored six straight TDs. It was offense at a level, a robotic, peerlessly effective level, that the league had never seen. And Brees was its mastermind.

Looking beyond his exploits as a passer, Brees the Hero of the Common Man may be viewed differently in the future as well. Few QBs have been extolled for their leadership and community impact as Drew, and few deserved it so. While his story of going to New Orleans because his heart called out to him underscores the fact that no one else really seemed to want him after his shoulder injury, what he did in leading that team, in that city, from the first year onwards is remarkable. The Saints were as much a part of that cities recovery as a sports team can be, and Brees pushing that team to immediate success was the primary driver. Yet, for all that leadership plaudits he received, and the credit he got as being to go-to example for the potential of a ‘short’ QB, a couple decades from now people can easily argue Russell Wilson as the prime example of these traits.

Drew Brees is an interesting case to view historically. At best, he is the 3^rd or 4^th best QB of his generation, definitely behind Messers Manning and Brady, and arguably behind Aaron Rodgers – or at least where Rodgers will end up. He spans a period where his late season career and late-career dip in success for the Saints, will hurt him historically as well as Russell Wilson running around becomes our go to for the short type who fought against the system. Still, let’s never forget just how impeccable Drew Brees was in his absolute prime (2006 – 2013), and how that eight year run, and the great surrounding years as well, will always put him right there statistically, if not so much anectodally.

My Top 50 QBs: #7 - Brett Favre

#7 - Brett Favre

What is there to say about the most written about QB this side of Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. New-age young fans who care more about statistics and efficiency and taking care of the ball push Favre down their lists. Those who are older and are used to mythologizing players who ran around and threw off-balanced passes in general directions of receivers who would often be fully covered, looked past those issues in Favre's career and hailed him as a top QB of all time. In reality, he is both, he is everything. Brett Favre, when he was on, had as high a peak as any QB in history. He also had the lowest floor of any of those players who had the high peak. The conundrum of Favre should rest somewhere in between as one of the best QBs of all time, with a penchant that grew increasingly more obvious as his career went on.

Favre's career is a myth in itself. A small-town, small-school boy from Kiln, Mississippi gets plucked out of career obscurity of being a backup in Atlanta to go play in our most nothernly outpost. Lake all great tales, there were ups (three straight MVPs, a Super Bowl title), and downs (public exposure of his painkiller addiction, his pick-happy late Green Bay years with Mike Sherman), but in sum, Favre's Green Bay years were statistically, ethereally and metaphorically the stuff of legend.

After a couple years of growing pains as a starter in a new offense and a new structure, Favre put together one of the best 5-year stretches the league had seen. From 1994-1998 (Mike Holmgren's last year in Green Bay), Favre went 57-23, threw for 20,273 yards with a 61.5 completion percentage, with 176 TDs and 79 INTs. This was still the mid-90's, where apart from the hyper efficiency of Steve Young, no one was putting up numbers like this. Favre truly combined volume and efficiency at a consistent level unlike anything the league had seen before. Marino had it for many years, but rarely such a sustained stretch.

This period combined with some excellent Green Bay teams with loaded talent on both sides of the ball, but Favre was that offense. He lost his best receiver due to freak injury in Sterling Sharpe, and continued to be great throwing to Andre Rison and Mark Chmura and a cast of random characters. The Packers loaded up with stars on defense (Reggie White most notably), but on offense it was a reliance on Holmgren and Favre to make magic together, and they did just that.

In this period of time, peak Favre was basically the 90's version of peak-Rodgers or peak-Manning or any other QB who's statistical exploits in a far more passing-heavy league make people think Favre wasn't their equal. Favre was. Starting mid-way through his 1995 season, where he won his first MVP, through his 1996 season where he won his second, Favre went 20-4, throwing for 5,945 yards, with 60 TDs and just 15 INTs, for a 104.1 rating. Favre, at his best, was a monster on the field, mastering the West Coast Offense to a way that would make Young or Montana proud.

Favre late career did expose Favre's limitations somewhat as a 'gunslinger' type who would throw careless interceptions and try to make crazy plays instead of safe ones. This was at its worst in the Mike Sherman days, when Favre's position in Green Bay became unchecked and his power limitless. There were few players who ran their teams like Favre in those years. What was shown when Mike McCarthy took over is a reigned in, programmed, smart Favre still existed and still could be brilliant.

The ultimate late career Favre also showed his true personality, his true humanity. His multiple tear-filled press conferences announcing his retirement, and his multiple un-retirements did grow tiresome, but they also showed just how much he truly loved playing the game. His consecutive start streak did become a bellweather at some points, but it becomes more amazing that he did it for the last 9 years or so without the help of painkillers. That also lends itself well to why he was so mentally demoralized after seasons, and after a few months of R&R he wanted back in.

The real Favre was also driven to get respect. Whether it was the respect of being a starting QB, or a Champion, the ultimate show of respect for Favre was being able to pick and choose when he retired. Green Bay didn't give him that, and in the most incredible show of drive for respect, if not revenge, he wanted to get back at them in the worst way. We always thought Favre needed a compass, needed a guide like Mike Holmgren. Favre's incredible 2009 performance, including two masterful games against Green Bay, showed he could be as self-driven as any other great QB.

Brett Favre will be entering the Hall of Fame in 2016. Reports from the Hall of Fame deliberation session that occurred before Super Bowl 50 said that the 'debate' on Favre was the quickest ever. While that is not too surprising given both the fact that Favre was a deserved Hall of Famer, and the way the media types who select the Hall of Fame generally loved Favre more than any player past or present. There is probably a cadre of stat-heads that saw his checkered history of high interception totals and would argue against him being such a slam dunk Hall of Famer, but when we peel back the stats, we see a glittering collection of incredible seasons and performances that nothing would befit Favre more than being a first ballot Hall of Famer.

My Top 50 QBs: #8 - Aaron Rodgers

#8 - Aaron Rodgers

Aaron Rodgers embodies everything a modern QB should be. He has an incredibly live arm, able to throw 40-yard passes on a straight line with no wiggle and a tight spiral. He is mobile enough to scramble for 1st downs and avoid the rush, while being able to launch those perfect throws from every angle running right or left. By all accounts, Aaron Rodgers is among the most, if not the most, gifted QBs to every play football. He has also had the best statistical start to his career of any QB, with all-time highs for career passer rating (102.4) and TD-INT ratio (364-84) and interception percentage (1.4%). He has this ridiculous resume despite his career being slightly 'off'' since 2015, when he put up career lows everywhere, and has alternated between a ridiculous hydra and a moody, dour, weirdo who values incompletions over even attempting a pass that might get intercepted. 

It's weird to even write these last few sentences. The last time I did this was after 2015, when he set career lows everywhere but was throwing to Jeff Abrederris and Jeff Janis by the end of the year. His next four seasons (2016-2019) have been a mixed bag, from a dramatic run to the 2016 NFC Championship Game, to missing the playoffs despite playing 16 games, going 6-9-1 in 2018. He even had a season where he went 13-3, but was billowed because of his 95.4 passer rating and a more obvious than ever distaste for taking risks. But those same risks he doesn't take, allows him to have earned two MVPs, a Super Bowl run, and a series of ludirously efficient games and moments.

In today's game, we value efficiency a lot more than we used to. The simple tenant to this is passing is better than running, a fact at this point all teams have more or less accepted. To this, a short pass is better than a handoff, and a sack taken is better than an interception. No QB, with the exception of late-career Brady, has been so reticent to throw interceptions as Aaron Rodgers. Passer rating as a stat overvalues not throwing interceptions (in the stat, a TD is worth less than an interception - which is definitely wrong). It is also a statistic that doesn't factor in sacks at all, which again helps Rodgers look even better by this stat. But this shouldn't turn into a focused examination of passer rating, but it points out how Rodgers used his prodigious skills combined with modern passing theory to master the elements that make him so statistically incredible.

Even if you strip away all the elements of the modern NFL, Rodgers can be hailed as an all-timer based on the more ethereal (the pessimist would say 'subjective') ways of judging QB play. Aaron Rodgers is an incredibly gifted player, who harnesses so much ability in that right arm. His ability to throw on the run will etch him in NFL films clips and haunt dreams of Bears, Vikings and Lions fans for decades to come. Whether its the Hail Mary's that defined his 2015 seasons, or the ridiculous throw while rolling to his left to beat the Cowboys in the 2016 Divisional Round. The moments are still there, even if not at the same pace as it used to.

His story is also one of pure America. Consistently undervalued, he was not offered a D-1 scholarship coming out of high school, playing a year at Butte Community College. He was passed up in the draft by numerous teams that needed a QB only to go to a team that had the same starting QB for 13 years. He was wedged into a civic mess with Favre and Ted Thompson politicking their way through the 2008 offseason. Through all this, he worked diligently on his ability, refining his throwing montion, making him this multi-faceted hydra that would dominate the league. He got his shot, ran with it, and created a stable foundation in Green Bay only matched by those in New England and whatever team Peyton Manning was QB-ing.

Aaron Rodgers is, at his peak, probably the best physically gifted QB in the history of the NFL. He probably also has the highest floor of any QB in the history of the NFL. His only real weakness is he takes too many sacks (again, something that has no impact on his pristine passer rating - but in advanced statistics that factor it in make him something of a Top-10 all time player). So much of where Rodgers ends up in that Top-10 will depend on how his prodigous skills age in the final years of his career. If his malaise in 2015-2018 was really about the souring relationship with Mike McCarthy, it could spell a great end. But with the Packers potentially drafting his replacement, and his malaise continuing, maybe we will never see the Aaron Rodgers that was so ridiculous from 2009-2014. And that is fine, not all players will age gracefully. Even with that he leaves behind such a ridiculous high, the lasting nightmare for so many opponents and fans, and a trove of memories that won't disappear, even as he and his team somewhat try.