Aaron Rodgers was most prepared to replace Alex Trebek, fired Jeopardy host says

Sports Entertainment

By Joshua Lynch

Maybe he really is a game manager!

New York Jets star quarterback Rodgers was actually “the most prepared” amongst a pool of other big-time celebrities to succeed the late great Alex Trebek, a fired “Jeopardy!” host claimed.

Mike Richards, 48, the former “Jeopardy!” producer who hosted the show for one day after Trebek’s death, revealed Rodgers checked off all the boxes to be the front runner for the job in 2021 – but his on-field career stood as a roadblock.

“Aaron Rodgers was definitely the most prepared,” Richards told People. “I was blown away by that — the intensity in which he prepped — and he was so lovely to everyone on staff.”

“But ultimately I worried about his other job that he does on a pretty high level. I was like, ‘How are you going to work this out with football scheduling?’ He said, ‘You’ll figure it out!’” Richards added.

Aaron Rodgers is no stranger to “Jeopardy!”, as he was a guest host for the show during a two-week stint that had fans raving over his fill-in performance.

The quarterback raised $236,725 on the show for the North Valley Community Foundation, a non-profit organization based in his hometown in Chico, Calif.

Richards said Rodgers was a huge fan of the show, which played a part in why he stood out over other guest hosts like ABC’s Good Morning America host Robin Roberts and former CBS anchor Katie Couric.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, TV star Mayim Bialik, and current host Ken Jennings were also in the mix.

Rodgers was also a contestant on the show, where he won the “Celebrity Jeopardy!’’ tournament in 2015, when he competed against astronaut Mark Kelly and “Shark Tank” entrepreneur Kevin O’Leary.

Rodgers said he would’ve accepted an offer if he’d been asked to take the gig full-time.

However, Richards was ultimately given the job over Rodgers — leaving “Jeopardy!” fans skeptical as to how the former producer of the show pulled it off.

“No one was more surprised than me,” Richards, also an ex-host of the reality series “Beauty & the Geek” and “New Year’s Rocking Eve in 2005,” said. “Everyone was so angry because it looked like I had gone into a room and picked myself.”

“They told me, ‘We’d like you to be the host of the syndicated version of ‘Jeopardy!’ I paused, and said, ‘Oh wow. Thank you. What’s the media plan?’ Because I was very concerned that this was going to be scrutinized as closely as a Presidential election,” Richards said.

Richards was fired after one episode into his new hosting gig when the Anti-Defamation League called for an investigation into derogatory comments he made on “The Randumb Show” in 2014.

The former “Jeopardy!” host apologized for the comments made, but it came at the same time he was slammed with a wrongful termination and discrimination lawsuit filed by the show’s models.