Stephen A. Smith Reacts To Aaron Rodgers’ Exchange With Giants Player

On this week’s episode of HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” New York Jets superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers got into it with Jihad Ward of the New York Giants after what the future Hall of Famer perceived as a late hit during their preseason game.

With Rodgers wearing a microphone on the field for the show, the interaction with Ward was caught, and it created quite a stir as the veteran quarterback blasted the Giants linebacker by saying he doesn’t even know who he is, which obviously made for great television.

Although Rodgers has been nothing but nice on “Hard Knocks” and seemingly the ideal teammate and quarterback, this showed a fiery side to the 39-year-old, which came with mixed reactions.

Of course, one of those reactions was from ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who debated whether it’s better for the Jets to see the nice Rodgers or the angry Rodgers.

Aaron Rodgers is a baaaaad man pic.twitter.com/Jmo2bFaT5k

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) August 31, 2023

It’s not all that surprising that Smith would go with angry Rodgers, and he should because this is football, and players need to have an edge about them in order to be successful, especially at the quarterback position.

In the end, this is a meaningless confrontation that’ll be forgotten until these two teams square off down the road in the regular season, but it was a bit refreshing to see Rodgers with a bit of fire still left in him, even though he’ll turn 40 in a few months.

Hopefully, for New York’s sake, Rodgers can continue to bring that fire and passion during the upcoming season because they’ll need it battling through the AFC East division, which might be the best in the league.

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