“Hi, it’s Aaron Rodg … Hello? Hello?”

By BRUCE LOWITT

In a case of potential collusion almost guaranteed to wind up in federal court, all but one of the 32 National Football League teams have decided – separately and not in concert, they insist – to avoid picking up the phone when Aaron Rodgers’ name appears on their Caller ID.

“Why the hell would we need to talk with other teams about him?” one NFL general manager, speaking on condition of anonymity, said during a telephone interview from his office in Eagen, Minnesota. “You’d have to have been on a year-long darkness retreat to not know how toxic he is for any team.

“We just think that whether or not we sign Sam Da- … um, sign one of our quarterbacks or stick the franchise or transition tag on him, we’d prefer to have one who doesn’t voluntarily spend a lot of time drugged up in isolation.”

The lone team willing to at least speak with, or about, Rodgers: the New York Giants.

“It’s not so much that we think he can turn this three-and-fourteen pile of manure … I mean we think we’re just a quarterback away from being winners next season,” Giants General Manager and Senior Vice President Joe Schoen said by phone from his MetLife Stadium office.

“But we have some salary-cap issues. So rather than throw tens of millions of dollars at a quarterback with a few years left in his career, we figure we can low-ball Aaron if he’s desperate enough to play one more season in order to redeem his reputation. A couple mil plus a year’s supply of ayahuasca oughta do it.

“Besides,” Schoen added, “when he gets into the Hall of Fame, his plaque will have our name on it as well as Green Bay’s and that other team that plays here. And it won’t cost anything in moving expenses to keep him here, rather than bringing in a veteran quarterback from, say, Minnesota or Pittsburgh or Seattle or Atlanta or Los Angeles or New Orleans or maybe going after a kid from Colorado or … oh, shit. Maybe I’d better just keep my mouth shut.”