Aaron Rodgers spent "hours and hours" studying Alex Trebek to prepare to guest-host Jeopardy!: "I wanted to absolutely just crush it"

ESPN

The Celebrity Jeopardy! champion, Green Bay Packers QB and reigning NFL most valuable player makes his debut on Monday as the next two-week Jeopardy! guest-host. Before his mid-February taping, Rodgers said he devoted a copious amount of time preparing for the job. "I watched hours and hours and hours of episodes," Rodgers told ESPN on Friday. "Luckily Netflix has a few seasons, and I went back to DVR. But I had to watch from a different perspective -- from Alex's perspective. I couldn't watch it as a fan anymore. I took pages and pages and pages of notes. I wrote down every affirmative that he said to any type of clue. I wrote down how he would respond if they didn't get it right. I wrote down beat points of the show. I wrote down all the different ways he would take it to break. I wrote down the stuff that he said coming out of break. Literally, I studied for this like no other. I wanted to absolutely just crush it." The first day was a practice session with the staff, and Rodgers said he could tell right way that "they weren't ready for me." "I know they didn't expect what I was about to bring, but I was just so prepared," Rodgers said. "I was so ready. So we get into the first game, the first run-through, there's 30 questions in a Jeopardy! round, and after the first 15 questions, we go to break. They say it in your earpiece, 'Take it to break.' So I take it to break, and there was a pause, and I think everyone was like, 'Whoa, OK, this guy kind of knows what he's doing here.' One of the head producers said as much. She was like, 'I'm just so appreciative of your approach.' And my whole thing was I felt like the best way to honor Alex's memory was to be so dialed in and so ready, and that's the approach I took. So I was ready to rock and roll."

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• Aaron Rodgers would definitely take the Jeopardy! job if offered, says hosting is almost like playing in the NFL: "Hell yeah, I would," he tells USA Today. "Look, it’s my second-brain job. I love the show and have a deep, deep affection for it. Not only is it a nostalgic connection to my childhood, but it’s a really special show to me and I had a great time with everybody that works there." Asked if he thought hosting would be harder than he thought it would be, Rodgers responded: "Of course. I do appreciate the practice games that we went through with some of the writers and researchers. But once the game started, there were definitely some nerves standing in the side stage and hearing my introduction and knowing I was going to walk from behind the board and have to take control of this game for the entire day. It was pretty special; nerve-wracking, but it was like an (NFL) game, almost, where you’re just kind of waiting for those introductions to run out of the tunnel."
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