Aaron Rodgers ‘will begin his four-day darkness retreat on MONDAY’

Aaron Rodgers is beginning his four-day darkness retreat on Monday as he considers whether to continue playing football.

The 39-year-old Green Bay Packers quarterback opened up on the Pat McAfee Show earlier this week about it but didn’t reveal precisely when he starts it. 

But according to NFL.Com, Rodgers will start the retreat on Monday.

Speaking this week, Rodgers said: ‘It’s four nights of complete darkness. You’re not locked in, you can leave if you can’t do it, you can just walk out the door.

‘But it’s a darkness retreat, I’ve had a number of friends who have done it and have had some profound experiences and it is something that has been on my radar for a few years now.

‘I felt it would be awesome to do regardless of where I have been leaning after this season. So it has been on the calendar months and months and months and it is coming up in a couple of weeks.

‘It’s a room, it’s a little house. There’s a two-way, like a little slot where they will drop in some food for you. But it is isolation and darkness, no music, no nothing. Just myself, isolation.

‘I’m still in the art of contemplation about my future. After my isolation retreat I’ll be ready to make a decision.’

He was asked, almost jokingly, if there is a bathroom or if he would wear a diaper, to which he replied: ‘I think you can wear adult diapers if you want but there is actually a bathroom, yeah.’

He continued: ‘I think there’s a lot of sleeping involved, for sure. I’m not taking anything in there with me. Nothing in there. If it’s too much, I will just walk out. The door is unlocked – if you want to leave, leave.’

The Packers failed to make the playoffs after a defeat on the final day of the regular season to the Detroit Lions on January 8.

Rodgers said immediately after that game that he would need time to consider what comes next for him and it has since emerged that the Packers would be willing to trade him if he does play on.

‘It’s a real thing,’ Rodgers said of his struggle to reach a decision. ‘That’s why it is going to be important to get through this week, take my isolation retreat and just be able to contemplate all things on my future and make a decision that is best for me moving forward, in the highest interest of my happiness.’