‘Jeopardy!’: Aaron Rodgers Pays Tribute to Alex Trebek as He Makes Hosting Debut

Aaron Rodgers has a message for a legendary game-show host. The Green Bay Packers quarterback makes his Jeopardy! hosting debut tonight, and the show revealed a clip of him in action. The video shows Rodgers showing gratitude for being a guest host while paying tribute to Alex Trebek who died of cancer in November at the age of 80.

“As a lifelong fan of Jeopardy!, it is an incredible honor to guest host,” Rodgers says in the video. “I’ve had the opportunity to do a lot of amazing things, but winning Celebrity Jeopardy! and getting to share the stage with the legend Alex Trebek is something I will never forget.” Rodgers goes on to say that Trebek “was such as gentleman, so smart, so precise. I was in awe. I will work hard to honor his legacy.”

Rodgers will be on Jeopardy! for two weeks. When speaking to Rob Demovsky of ESPN, Rodgers revealed he filmed the episodes in February over a two-day span. As far as preparing goes, Rodgers said he put in a lot of work by watching a lot of episodes.

“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,” Rodgers said. “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.”

This might be Rodgers’ first time hosting Jeopardy!, but he is very familiar with how the game works. As mentioned in the video, Rodgers won Celebrity Jeopardy! back in 2015. And it looks like Jeopardy! executives were impressed with Rodgers as the three-time NFL MVP said “they weren’t ready for me.”

“I was so ready,” Rodgers said. “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.’”