Packers: Aaron Rodgers responds to criticism from former tight end Jermichael Finley

September 21, 2021
|In Packers
|By Zach Heilprin

Jermichael Finley’s name never came out of Aaron Rodgers’ mouth Tuesday during his weekly appearance on the Pat McAfee Show but it was clear to anyone listening that the Green Bay Packers quarterback is tired of hearing his former tight end’s opinion whenever he struggles in a game.

Finley, who last played for the Packers in 2012, has routinely hit the media circuit when the three-time MVP does not play well and he was back at it last week following a nightmare of a performance by Rodgers and the Packers in a 38-3 blowout loss to New Orleans. Finley said Rodgers no longer had the fire to win a championship, he looked tired and that the team should transition to Jordan Love if it continued.

Following a four-touchdown, zero interception effort in a 35-17 win over Detroit on Monday night, Rodgers came out firing when asked about the overall noise around his performance a week earlier.

“I mean, on one hand, it’s absolute horseshit to give a platform to people who have no idea what they’re talking about as far as my mental state, and my focus and my work habits,” Rodgers said. “People that have not been around me, they’re not in my life, I don’t have communication with them, they’re not in the locker room, that’s just chicken shit. It’s so ridiculous that people can get a platform to do this and it’s the same type of people.

“I don’t think I need to defend myself and people aren’t worth spending time on, but I’m always gonna give a reminder that listen to the source of some of these things and then be reminded, it’s often the same people in the same tired rhetoric.

“I was just surprised after week one there was such a story out there, but what’s crazy to me is to let one storyline, by a person who has no contact with me and zero relationship. That becomes some sort of narrative that’s out there, that now I somehow don’t care about ball because because of my zen attitude in the offseason. That’s the bullshit I was talking about last night.”