HEATED DEBATE 🔥 Stephen A. thinks Aaron Rodgers is UNFAIRLY CRITICIZED?! | First Take

HEATED DEBATE 🔥 Stephen A. thinks Aaron Rodgers is UNFAIRLY CRITICIZED?! | First Take

Let’s get into some more wild comments. This one Stephen A regarding your other team. Heading over to Pittsburgh as Rogers is in training camp getting set for what he alluded to be maybe his final season in the NFL. Rogers hopes to lead the Steelers to their first playoff win in eight seasons. But one former Steelers quarterback not a fan of Aaron’s arrival. During a radio interview with 1037 the buzz in May, the four-time Super Bowl champ Terry Bradshaw had this to say when news came out of the Steelers interest in signing Rogers saying, quote, “That’s a joke. That is just to me it’s a joke. What are you going to do? Bring him in for a year? Are you kidding me? That guy needs to stay in California, go somewhere, chew on bark, and whisper to the gods out there?” Aaron Rogers responded for the first time over the weekend. Take a listen. Terry, like a lot of people, doesn’t know me. And so, he’s got an idea of what he thinks about me based on uh what I’ve done, the documentary, what I’ve said, Darkness Retreat, whatever the hell you want to talk about. Okay, Mike T, I’d like to begin with you here. Do you believe Aaron gets unfairly criticized by the media? No, not at all. And I’ll bifrocate it onto onfield and off-field. onfield guys. The sober honest facts is this. Since 2022 in terms of QBR, he is 26 out of 29. The only quarterbacks that are worse than Aaron Rogers are Ryan Tanahill, Bryce Young, M. Jones, and Will Le. So, he has not played good football in four years. That’s just the godhonest facts. Hopefully, he’ll play better. Maybe he catches lightning in the bottle. In terms of off the field, here’s what I find to be somewhat ironic. If you’re on Netflix, if you’re in contemplation of being a vice presidential candidate, and you live as transparently as you do, which is his way of how he wants to comport himself, it is going to come with more scrutiny. When you’re on the Pat McAfee show as often as you are, it comes with more scrutiny. And look, he made those decisions which are fine. So to me, the absolutely his play is worthy of criticism. And when you put yourself out on the platforms he did such as Netflix, it is gonna come with some of the comments that Terry Bradshaw made. If you don’t want that, comport yourself differently. Stephen A, would you like to defend your guy? Well, first order of business, Molly, is that I’m going to throw some shade on you. I mean, I’ve been gone for a month and here you are going to my teeth before you came to me. Why am I waiting for Mike? I mean, I was listening to him the last two weeks. I was listening to him the last two weeks, but I’m waiting. He went hot on that. Stephen A. You know, when he dropped that QBR since 2022, you were like, “Well, damn, he’s been bad.” Come on. Well, first of Well, first of all, um, we all know that Aaron Rogers, instead of being a bad man. Uh, he’s been bad. But let’s be clear, he’s bad primarily according to his standards. Standards he established. We have to make up our minds. Mike T, CC, I’ll defer to y’all, but understand this. Aaron Rogers threw for nearly 4,000 yards, threw 28 touchdowns, 11 interceptions last year. It was a bad year. It was a bad year. What, you know, the QBR wasn’t impressive. We get all of that. How many quarterbacks we see doing that? The fact of the matter is, you got a whole bunch of bad quarterbacks that we going to call him bad. We got a whole bunch of bad quarterbacks in the National Football League. Let’s call that Let’s get that out the way first. Secondly, I think that and I think this and I’m going to be sensitive when I say this because I think it’s important. If we just looked at Aaron Rogers as a football player, we point out how he has to be better. I’m not about to I’ve heard CC speak about him and others and I know you’re right, C. So, I’m not going to challenge you on that. But I’m talking about the criticism that has that that that has been disseminated about Aaron Rogers. I’m saying it’s unfair because it’s got a bit excessive because you have a lot of people out there who genuinely dislike him. Whether it’s because of what you heard in Green Bay, whether it’s him I I think the mistake he made was ever bringing Nathaniel Hack. I don’t know what the hell he was thinking about that. He should have left us behind in Denver. You understand what I’m saying? Left when you departed Green Bay, let make sure he never saw him again. But that’s just me. Okay. And we obviously know when, you know, the whole immunization thing, you know, when he didn’t get vaccinated, he was he was caught, you know, trying to be a bit evasive about that. And I got on him about that. There’s a lot of things that people point to. They talk about him in the locker room, living in his own world, not necessarily having the greatest relationship with some of his players, etc. He should be a better leader, blah blah blah. And I’m saying, damn, y’all. I first of all, I I I like him. I like him. I love him as a player. I like him as a person, okay? I don’t know him that well, but we spoke on several occasions. I I I find him to be a a pretty decent dude and very smart. And a lot of people look at him and because he might have conspiracy theories and all of this other stuff, they throw that against the wall as an excuse to judge him. I’m not saying you two, I would never say that about you, Mike T, or you CC. I’m not accusing y’all of that. But I’m saying y’all cover the sport. And y’all know that a lot of the noise that has come out about Aaron Rodgers has not been about football. I mean, my god, I had my sister my sister was going the hell off. My sister Carmen was going off because my when he got hurt the fourth play, his first year in with the Jets on the fourth play of the game. What’s he doing interviews for? Why is he even talking to anybody? He need to just sit down and shut up. And I’m like, will you relax? The brother got hurt. He torn his Achilles. going to be my god. I mean, it wasn’t his fault. You know what I’m saying? What can he do about that? No sympathy whatsoever. But had that been Tom Brady, had that been Payton Manning, had that been a Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson? Oh, I’m so sad they got hurt. Ah, we This is what we do to Aaron Rogers. And I’m saying it needs to stop. Judge the man. And I’m not again, I’m not saying you two haven’t done it, but judge the man on football. Could he be better? Absolutely. back-to-back playoff losses at Lambeau Field to to the San Francisco 49ers and you know all of this stuff. I got it. You know, I understand it going to the Jets playing the way that he did last year. I got it. But you don’t look at him and say he’s finished. He’s done. He can’t have a better season and you know what he’s capable of because you’ve seen it in the past. I think a lot of people judge him because they don’t like him, not because they’re just looking at football. I see what you did just now, Stephen. today. Yeah, you’re just back today, but you’re in mid-season form cuz you running out the clock on me. I see what you did just now. You ran out the clock on me, and that’s okay. I’m going to make it short and sweet. You said, “Let’s judge Aaron Rogers just based on the football. So, I’m going to confine my commentary to just football.” You intimated that Aaron Rodgers could play better. Why? In his age 42 season, why do you expect Aaron Rodgers to be better? There have only been five quarterbacks to start to win a playoff game. No. Well, there have only been five quarterbacks to start and win a playoff game in their age 40 season or later. You talk about better coaching, better organization. He was with the Green Bay Packers. Decided he didn’t want that after back-to-back MVP seasons. He didn’t want that when he had a situation in a winning end game in week 18 in 2022 and he lost it to a division rival that had nothing to play for. If you want to confine it to just the realm of football, why is every franchise better off without Aaron Rodgers? The Green Bay Packers in the two years after Aaron Rogers were better off than Rogers in his last season there. The New York Jets in the one year where Aaron Rogers were hurt were better off win loss record than with Aaron Rogers playing all 17 games last year. And you can’t blame him for that. You need to stop that white man. What do you mean? What do you mean? I can’t blame Aaron Rogers for what happened with the New York Jets. Why can’t Why can’t Why Why can’t I blame him? Why can’t I blame him? This is his handpicked situation. I just said that. He had He had everything that he wanted in New York the last two years and he literally set the franchise on fire. How is he not culpable? How is he not to blame for that? Hold up. Hold up. How are we absolving him from the situation we saw with the Jets? Woody, what Woody Johnson, Mr. UK ambassador before comes back into the fold and decides to get rid of Robert Salah, you know, five games or so into the season and and and take his defensive coordinator and make him the interim coach. Discombobulates the defense, discombobulates the offense, discombobulates the leadership. Yeah, Mike T. I’m trying to hide now. You know, it’s true. That’s what Woody Johnson I’m not blaming Aaron Rogers for last year more so than the owner. I’m not doing that. Hold on, Stephen. today, whatever owner, fill in the blank, Woody Johnson or 31 others, if they were playing well, if the trajectory was where everyone thought it would be, they would not have made a change. Here’s the other thing that I will give you a stunning statistic. In the history of pro football, there’s been two players that have started a playoff game at 42 or older, two quarterbacks. Tom Brady, who’s the greatest of all time, and Drew Brees, one and done. So, if Aaron Rogers takes Pittsburgh to the playoffs, he’s doing something unbelievably historic. And we have to have that context. Okay, I respect the context. I respect the fact that the odds are stacked against him, but y’all talking about the brother like he trash. I’m saying the brother got he can still do some things. And then I’m thinking about DK Metaf. I would have liked them to have keep pickings rather than him being in the Dallas Cowboy uniform, but that’s neither here nor there. But you got DK Metaf. Okay, you got Jaylen Warren. Okay, you got five moves. You resigned TJ understand they can do some things. Let’s revisit Let’s revisit this conversation like about four weeks in. I’ll give him a You’re going to give him the outline. You’re going to give him four weeks. Let’s give him Let’s give him I don’t I don’t think we’re going to need that. We going We going to find out week one against the Jets. Oh, we are. We going to find out week one. Got to give the guy a little time with a new team. He going to deal with them. Okay. He going to deal with the Jets. He going to deal with the Jets. Okay. He going We’ll see. We’ll find out. We’ll find out. Stephen A.

On First Take, Stephen A. Smith, Mike Tannenbaum and Chris Canty join Molly Qerim to debate if Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is unfairly criticized by the media.

0:00 Bradshaw unhappy with Rodgers
0:51 Rodgers responds to Terry Bradshaw
1:31 Is Rodgers unfairly criticized by the media?
2:00 Mike Tannenbaum weighs in
3:09 Stephen A. responds
6:41 Chris Canty responds
8:20 Is Rodgers to blame for the Jets lack of success last season?

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