Dear Aaron Rodgers

I am fully aware you won’t ever read this, but I still need to get it off my chest. I teared up today reading your goodbye to the fans and have been trying to figure out why. Here’s what I came up with.

I’ve never been at the table of a meeting with general managers, quarterbacks, or agents. I have no idea what any of the words of your contracts have been, nor have I ever wanted to read them. As much as I would’ve loved to have been a fly on the wall in the room with all the experts on draft day, I’ve never been invited.

As a former coach, on a much, much, much smaller scale, I do understand the feeling of others, who are not in the locker room or the meeting room, or the film room, or your living room, making assumptions about the decisions that you make with the best of intentions. I understand giving a sport or a team your whole heart and then having to walk away because you sense they want to move in a different direction. I understand that sports is a business, but as a fan I understand that the business part is none of my business. As a fan, I just want to thank you.

Thank you for the countless hours of hope and excitement that were always an escape from whatever was going on in my life that week.

Thank you for giving me a reason to go to my parents house and sit in their living room for 3-4 hours each week and nervously crouch in the rocking chair 6 inches from their tiny tv.

Thank you for giving my mom and I, and my godson and I, a reason to come watch Packer training camp together and the memories we made in the stands, or throwing the football in the parking lot.

Thank you for the playoff game in 2014 against the 49ers that my brother and I went to together. We lost, and I think that we both got hypothermia, but we stopped at Red Lobster for those cheesy biscuits on the way home and made a memory we will never forget.

Thank you for the Miracle in Motown in 2015. I had just moved back to Florida, was missing my family, and feeling homesick. I came home from a tough coaching loss, and turned the game on. Watching Packer games has always made me feel like I’m at home no matter where I am, and this game had me screaming, crying, and believing anything was possible during a time in my life when that was really necessary.

You once said “How can you not be romantic about football?” Romance is defined as a “feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.” In my mind, mystery, excitement, and love sum up the way you have played the game.