Lucas Patrick, the backup center of the Packers, has never publicly told this Aaron Rodgers story.



“If we got time,” he said near the end of the open locker room on Tuesday, “there’s a story.”



It goes like this: Shortly before NFL roster cutdown day in 2017, entering Patrick’s second year in the league and after an entire season spent on the practice squad in 2016, Patrick was a bubble player.



Patrick’s mom Liz was visiting Green Bay and they rode together in her Ford Escape out of the Lambeau Field parking lot.



Someone approached the car and knocked on the window, asking Liz to roll it down. It was Rodgers, the star quarterback who had just carried the Packers to the NFC Championship Game the year before, wanting to talk to the mom of a no-name offensive lineman who had never played an NFL snap.



“As a person – not ’12,’ not ‘Aaron Rodgers’ and all this – as...