Did these guys change?

I’m the head of the table now.

Solo Sikoa had staked his claim to the title that Roman Reigns gave himself to establish his presence as one of the main villains in all of professional wrestling.

In response, fans started rallying behind Roman Reigns. They chanted for him to return, a conquering hero reclaiming his title from his usurping cousin. In the months since then, they have backed him and his claim as one of the top good guys in wrestling.

Here’s the thing. The fans are now cheering for the same line, the same idea, the same title for Roman Reigns that they used to boo. He’s still the Head of the Table. He’s still the Tribal Chief.

Maybe Roman Reigns didn’t change. Maybe it was just the way that everything around him changed. Maybe we’re the ones who changed.

I used to be an avid listener of the Dan Le Batard show. I don’t listen as often as now, but I still align with his general point of view and approach to sports coverage. One of the running threads for his program used to be whether or not people "get the show."

At one point in time, Aaron Rodgers got the show.

He would join as a frequent guest. The joke was that Rodgers would only go on Le Batard among the menu of ESPN radio shows, and then the hosts would ask him almost zero serious questions about football.

They would guess how much things cost at Walmart. Rodgers would discuss meditation retreats and his other intellectual pursuits. I think one segment involved the then-Packers quarterback describing his trip to meet the Dalai Lama.

Aaron Rodgers seemed smart and interesting. And he seemed proud that people found him smart and interesting.

Things are different now. Aaron Rodgers traded his standing invitation on Le Batard for the chance to join the Pat McAfee show. Unfiltered and unchecked, Rodgers gave medical opinions that were unsupported, to put it the most politely one can. He fired off conspiracy theories. He did a pretty reasonable Donald Trump impression, minus the yelling and the spray tan.

Any individual's mileage on Rodgers will vary. Where I might bemoan the way that he has changed and wonder what the hell happened to him, someone else might agree with him and appreciate that he has changed and is now speaking about those issues.

But I find myself wondering: did Aaron Rodgers really change? Or was it everything around him that changed?

Maybe he was just always someone who wanted to be smarter than the average athlete. Maybe it was always important to Aaron Rodgers that other people find him fascinating. Maybe people just changed their notions of what makes a person like him interesting, beaten down by a pandemic and a decade characterized by unprecedented events and general unpleasantness.

It was interesting, whimsical even, when Rodgers talked about meditating instead of blathering on with the typical quarterback talking points. It is neither of those things when he explains what he meant when he said he was "immunized" and lied about his COVID vaccination status.

I'm not sure Rodgers changed. Maybe it's the world that's reacting to him that changed.

The more Solo Sikoa appeared on Smackdown and declared himself the new head of the table, the clearer it became that Roman Reigns was coming back as a baby face. The crowd booed Sikoa. They threw their full support behind Reigns as the one who should be known as the tribal chief.

WWE fans know the story with Roman. Anyone who watched this promotion in the 2010s knows the story. Roman was always pushed as the top guy. The crowd didn’t want him. One heel after another lined up as Roman’s foe, disrespecting him and the fans and just generally being the bad guy. The crowd still didn’t want him.

Roman Reigns worked hard. He was the face of the company. Yet he never reached that extra level. He never reached that point where he felt special, where he was the guy who fans wanted to see and wanted to will forward to victory.

That was the context when Roman was away for two extended absences. He was away for cancer treatment and then for a long stretch for apparent health reasons. Finally, upon his return to empty arena shows during wrestling’s COVID era, we saw a new presentation for the artist formerly known as the Big Dog.

Aligned with Paul Heyman, his longtime foe, Reigns was fully a heel.

In a story and character arc that has unfolded over years, Reigns established himself as the Head of the Table. He was the leader of the Bloodline, a group made up of his family and, famously, the one and only Sami Zayn.

That group has yielded multiple long-term stories. One of the volumes wrapped up when Reigns lost his title to Cody Rhodes and ended his years long reign as champion. Now another volume is unfolding, and it no longer involves Reigns as the big bad heel.

Thinking back to those years of having Roman forced on crowds as the top guy, one might have asked the question: “what will it take for the crowd to get behind Roman Reigns?” What we may have known then, and what we certainly know now, is that it was complicated. It would take multiple factors and stories and characters to get that big pop for a Roman Reigns entrance.

The most interesting thing to me is the evolution of everything around Roman such that his good guy gimmick is so close to his bad guy gimmick. Fans are pointing one index finger up to the sky. They acknowledge him. Roman could very well copy and paste one of his heel speeches from a previous show, but now he’ll get cheered for it.

Check out the reaction when Reigns returned to reclaim his title as tribal chief. Just as one might have expected in the build to that moment, fans are almost universally excited to shout and yell and cheer for Roman Reigns.

That’s not a bad thing. It’s just interesting to consider when it comes to stories, characters, and who we root for.

Are people cheering for Aaron Rodgers now? Given the loyalty of NFL fan bases, maybe that's not the right way to frame it. Let's try this: are most people actively rooting against Aaron Rodgers now?

We were a full year removed from seeing Rodgers on a football field before he flopped with the New York Jets in 2024. On any given day, we were fewer days and weeks than that from the last time that Rodgers fired off some conspiracy theories on the aforementioned Pat McAfee show, apparently losing his standing invitation. Somewhere in there, Rodgers was also considered as a potential running mate for an unserious man who once dumped a bear corpse in Central Park.

And yet, as the context around Rodgers only grows more bizarre, I wonder about the same question: has anything changed about Aaron Rodgers? Or is it just everything around him that continues to shift?

I wonder about this because any heat on Rodgers for acting like a weirdo creep seems to have cooled. In that sense, it's strange to think that some of the worst things he has said were offered up during his last public appearances before NFL training camps started.

But that's the most recent and most important change, isn't it? A simple change in the calendar. The arrival and departure of another NFL season, the most exciting time for the most popular sport. A time when people aren't really in the mood to dig into the problems that Rodgers presents as a public figure and the complications for a fan who wants to root for him.

During last year’s football season, there was a good chance that a nationally featured game would include Rodgers. For the fans who just wanted the outlet of watching football, it was so much easier to set the baggage aside and hope for an entertaining game, something Rodgers has delivered consistently throughout his career.

Did anything about Rodgers change in the time that people lost heart to challenge his wacky and sometimes dangerous behavior? His physical health, maybe, but I'm not sure if anything else did. And so, the attention shifted to him as one of many quarterbacks in the NFL. He's not just another player in the league, but he's closer to that normal designation than he ever should be.

That's how it is, for now, until things change again.

When perceptions change for a pro wrestler, driven by these shifts outside the performer’s control, it's interesting but ultimately harmless. I'm just happy for Roman Reigns.

When perceptions change around Rodgers, driven by the fluidity around real issues with real stakes, it raises some far more serious questions. It's potentially harmful, after all, to absolve powerful people of accountability because people just aren't up for dealing with it anymore.

I say that, but I know I'm not up for it. I'm going to watch some wrestling.

Featured image from Wikimedia Commons.