Aaron Rodgers is tired of hearing about it.
No, not the question of whether or not Brett Favre is going to retire. Obviously, Rodgers would like to know just as much as the rest of us, but he knows Favre will decide in due time. And Rodgers plans on approaching the off-season the same whether he's going to be Favre's backup for another year or the new starting quarterback.
Actually, Rodgers is tired of hearing about his body fat.
Now, at 6-foot-2 and 223 pounds, the 23-year-old Rodgers keeps himself in good shape. He moves in the pocket well and can make things happen on the run. Heck, he even proved to Head Coach Mike McCarthy in his first season working with him that he's a better athlete than McCarthy thought when scouting him for the 2004 NFL Draft out of California.
But McCarthy, who has helped develop several young quarterbacks in the NFL, likes his pupils to be around 8 percent body fat. Rodgers says he's around 10 percent, and he'd like to get to the point where it doesn't need to be discussed every time he has a chat with his head coach.
"Mike always hounds me about my weight, not really my weight but my body fat," Rodgers said. "I want to get down to 8 percent, and get a little stronger upper-body wise and obviously get healthy, and just be ready to maybe go through a 16-game schedule, a grind."
Rodgers would welcome that opportunity, though it depends on Favre and that's out of his hands.
What is under his control is his conditioning, so he's making that a top priority this off-season, along with continuing to recover and rehabilitate the broken foot he suffered on Nov. 19 against New England that ended his 2006 season.
Rodgers is scheduled to shed the protective boot on his foot in the next couple of weeks, and he'll be home in California working with a personal trainer to get back to full strength and get his body prepared for, potentially, starting 16 games in 2007.
"He needs to do the same thing he did last off-season," quarterbacks coach Tom Clements said. "He was here for all the workouts, he was here for what we call the quarterback school. He took full advantage of it last year.
"He just needs to continue to develop on the same path. He obviously has all the physical tools. At some point, he's going to be the guy, and he just has to prepare as if that's going to be the case."
{sportsad300}Quarterback school begins on March 19, which after the boot comes off should give Rodgers two full months to complete his rehab and reach his conditioning goals.
Somewhere in the interim he's likely to find out whether he's the Packers' starting quarterback for 2007, but he's not going to waste time pondering the unknown. Just like last year, he knows his time is much better spent improving his game and his body for whenever his time comes.
"I really dove into this offense this (past) off-season and tried to soak up as much as I could, and I feel like I made some good strides," he said. "By the end of mini-camps and quarterback school and OTAs and all that stuff, if I do have to be a starter I think I'll be ready."
McCarthy has no doubts about that as far as Rodgers' physical ability and his mental capacity in running the offense and reading defenses. The only question is one that all the conditioning, rehab and quarterback school work can't answer.
"The thing about Aaron that you don't know is if he can lead the football team," McCarthy said. "You never know that, I don't care who you are, until you put the young man in there in real football games."
Rodgers plans on being in the best shape of his life whenever that does happen.
"He never mentioned that last year," said former offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski. "That was one of the first things he mentioned, about getting into great shape before he even gets to quarterback school, and he will. I'm really anxious to see how he does developmentally as he goes on."
