To think, this was only a preseason game. And the tiff between Aaron Rodgers and Jihad Ward continues on, spilling into the regular season.
It all started when Rodgers, the new Jets quarterback, played his first preseason game in five years. He couldn’t miss the Jets game with the Giants. After all, the two teams share a stadium and an apparent football hatred for each other.
The latest salvo between Aaron Rodgers and Jihad Ward came from the Jets QB, who’d had enough of the Giants defensive end accusing his teammates of laughing at a player who suffered a concussion.
“He thought we were laughing at his teammate?” Rodgers told ESPN. “That never happened and I think he’s making s— up. I don’t care.”
Before we delve into the he said-he said details, let’s get some background. Early in the Jets-Giants game, Rodgers threw a pass to Tyler Conklin for a 14-yard gain. However, former Packer Randall Cobb committed a stupid penalty. Officials flagged him for an illegal blindside block on Giants cornerback Bobby McCain. And McCain suffered a concussion on the play.
Jihad Ward said he looked over at the Jets huddle and that Aaron Rodgers and other players were laughing. He even confronted Rodgers two plays later, with the pair getting after it, facemask to facemask. Rodgers warned Ward to not “poke the bear.”
The latest episode of Hard Knocks revealed it all again, ripping off that competitive scab.
“Everybody going to get pi--ed off at that. The whole team was pi--ed off, you know what I’m saying?” Ward said via ESPN. “It’s preseason and all that stuff and you’re going to do some reaction like that?
“It’s cool, though. That’s how they roll. I think we play them soon, it is what it is.”
Ward also added: “See, the thing is, they’re going to entertain. They’re going to show his part — HBO, whatever stuff is going on, Hard Knocks. They’re going to show his part. They weren’t even in the whole scenario of what really went down. They’re going to show his side of the story. … It’s all about Aaron Rodgers at the [end] of the day. They sign him, it is what it is. They’re going to show his part and make me look like a sucker. But I ain’t going for that.”
But Rodgers said he and the rest of the Jets on the field were giving Cobb grief for the penalty. He knows better, the quarterback said.
“I couldn’t believe it. I’ve been around Randall Cobb forever. We talk about smart players and doing smart things on the field. I don’t know what was in that. I was watching that in slow motion going, ‘No, no, no Cobby, what are you doing?’ ” Rodgers said following last week’s game. “We were laughing because that wasn’t a penalty when we started playing. It has been a penalty for a while. So, not the smartest play.
“I said, ‘Bro, you’ve got a third kid on the way. You just took money out of your pocket. You’re going to have to buy [your wife] Aiyda something nice for that.’ “
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