Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers came into the league with a chip on his shoulder about slipping to the 24th overall pick and he’s found numerous ways to fuel a sense of outrage ever since on his way to a Super Bowl title and a spot at the top of the list of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
He hasn’t been shy about sharing his anger at perceived slights over the years, but Rodgers says that he won’t be engaging with Vikings wide receiver Greg Jennings after the former Packer has spent much of the offseason lobbing barbs at his ex-teammate. In a piece for TheMMQB.com, Rodgers writes that Jennings’ words don’t mean much to him.
“People taking shots at me who aren’t relevant to this team and to this locker room doesn’t mean a whole lot to me,” Rodgers wrote. “Those comments do wash over with me without a reaction, because they don’t matter.”
Based on that response, Rodgers won’t much care what Donald Driver, another person who falls into the category of not being relevant to the 2013 Packers, had to say about Jennings’ comments about a separation between Rodgers and his teammates. Driver called Rodgers “a great guy” and said he didn’t know what might have gone on between Rodgers and Jennings in the past while also explaining what he thought Jennings was talking about.
“We’ve always said that the quarterback is the one that needs to take the pressure off everyone else,” Driver said during an appearance on ESPN Radio. “If a guy runs the wrong route, it’s easy for the quarterback to say, ‘Hey, I told him to run that route than for the guy to be like, ‘Well, I ran the wrong route.’ Sometimes you ask Aaron to take the pressure off the guys so we won’t look bad, but he didn’t want to do that. He felt like if you did something bad, you do it. But I think that’s the difference. You want that leadership, and I think sometimes you may not feel like you got it. You have to earn that respect at the end of the day, and I think that’s what Greg was probably referring to. ... That’s the way the guy is. I’ve always told Aaron, ‘Don’t forget where you come from because the people are the ones who put you on that pedestal. You didn’t put yourself there.’”
While there might be differences of opinion about Rodgers’ leadership style, it’s hard to argue with the offense’s results on the football field over the last few weeks. That matters much more than whether or not the players are chummy and all the comments from former teammates won’t do anything to knock Rodgers down unless the production should take a turn for the worse.