The ongoing saga of where Aaron Rodgers will play during the 2023 season took a somewhat unexpected turn earlier this week, with WFAN and FS1 host Craig Carton saying the San Francisco 49ers could be a potential landing spot. Co-host Evan Roberts told Carton he was being used by teams in the NFL to get their message out there.
Carton’s claim that the 49ers were potentially making a run at the Green Bay quarterback created an NFL media firestorm. Roberts argued that Carton was told something by a source to try to force someone else’s hand.
“Craig, you’re just being used,” Roberts said.
“Why would anyone use me?” rebuffed Carton.
“To get the message out there to scare the Jets. It’s obvious. That’s ok,” Roberts said. “You don’t have to see it, I’ll see it for you.”
Carton then asked why if the Packers and Jets are only negotiating with each other it has taken so long to get a deal done. That’s when Roberts revealed a similar situation happened last year in his contract negotiations with WFAN.
“Let me take you back to last October. I’m gonna walk you through something,” began Roberts. “I had a contract that was running out, and me and the company negotiated. I never wanted to leave. They knew to replace me — to get someone you’d be happy with — it would cost them a hell of a lot more money. They didn’t wanna do that, so it was kind of like this inevitable ‘We’re gonna re-sign him, I’m gonna re-sign’. Yet it took a few weeks.”
“We did have a replacement for you, and he costs a lot less. He also lives in my house. ‘Minimum Wage Sonny’, we’d call him,” Carton said, alluding to his son who has sporadically guest-hosted shows at WFAN.
Roberts continued by saying the Green Bay Packers needed a “lemon” to share a story that the 49ers were interested in Rodgers to “scare” the New York Jets.
“You happened to be that lemon,” Roberts said. “This is all an attempt — and I give the Packers credit, it’s creative — to scare the Jets…they’re going to make the deal, and it’s going to happen soon.”
“I didn’t put it out there to get attention. You saw the correspondence I got,” Carton said. “I’m not a click-bait guy. People that don’t know me — nationally — can say whatever they want, I don’t care.”
“Craig, you’re doing nothing wrong, you’re just being used,” concluded Roberts.
