Aaron Rodgers Acknowledges That ‘South Park’ Was Right About Football
Twelve years ago, South Park tried to warn us that we’d be watching football players prance around in bras and tinfoil hats, doling out compliments and hugs instead of making hard-hitting tackles. Now, New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is starting to taste the truth about Butters’ Creamy Goo.
On Monday, Rodgers and the Jets fell to their division rivals the Buffalo Bills by a score of 23-20 on Monday Night Football in a nationally televised game that was plagued by penalties as the referee crew showed off their itchy flag fingers to the frustration of fans and players alike. For instance, after Rodgers took what looked like a textbook sack from Bills defensive end A.J. Epenesa on a crucial third down during the third quarter, the officiating crew called a roughing the passer penalty on Epenesa, prompting Rodgers to tell his opponent, “That’s an awful call,” according to the lipreading experts watching the game.
In his postgame press conference, Rodgers lambasted the referees for overreacting to the kind of physical play that’s supposed to typify the sport of football, saying of the penalty on Epenesa, “That’s not roughing the passer. Might as well play Sarcastaball if we’re gonna call those things.”
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Careful what you wish for, Aaron. Sarcastic comments like that are exactly how Randy Marsh became the head coach of the Denver Broncos.
In the South Park Season 16 episode “Sarcastaball,” South Park Elementary’s decision to eliminate kickoffs from kids’ football over injury concerns enrages Randy and drives him to sarcastically invent a safe and sanitized alternative to football in a rant at a PTA meeting that the rest of South Park takes all too seriously. In the new “sport,” the competitors wear ridiculous uniforms, use a balloon instead of a ball and win through demonstrating their kindness instead of making physical, athletic plays.
Butters proves to be a natural at the sport, thanks to the “happy, loving goo” inside him that he believes is the source of the good nature that leaks out of him in the nighttime. Both Sarcastaball and Butters’ jarred semen become so unironically popular that the NFL adopts Sarcastaball as its official sport, naming Randy as the head of the Denver squad, and Butters’ Creamy Goo becomes one of the most consumed and endorsed sports drinks in the country.
In real life, the push toward player safety in the NFL has rubbed many of the professionals whom these rules are designed to protect the wrong way, and the league’s fans are similarly exhausted by the over-officiating that slows down and changes the outcome of competitive games like Monday night’s clash. Of course, Sarcastaball isn’t just about prioritizing safety and comfort over competition, and Rodgers has been sarcastically embracing the Sarcastaball culture long before he name-dropped the South Park episode on TV — anyone who has heard him talk about vaccines knows that he’s had his tinfoil hat on for years.
