A bizarre confrontation and seemingly huge misunderstanding occurred between Jerry Rice and Kansas City-based reporter(s) at the American Century Championship on Thursday.
The Hall of Fame wide receiver, who played across 20 seasons for the San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks, appeared to have not taken too kindly to a line of questioning. While finishing his practice round at Lake Tahoe, Rice was asked if he felt the Kansas City Chiefs’ wide receivers were good enough to win yet another Super Bowl.”
Rice reacted strongly to the reporters’ seemingly innocuous question.
A video obtained by TMZ Sports shows him confronting one reporter with a threat, saying, “I will f*ck you up.”
Security intervened to keep them apart, and Rice walked away with a final challenge, “If you want some, come get some.”
Jerry Rice lost it on two reporters on the golf course at the American Century Championship in Lake Tahoe on Thursday.
The reporters asked whether the Chiefs receiving core was good enough to win a Super Bowl. 61-year-old Rice got in one of the men’s faces and said, “I will f***… pic.twitter.com/7BIBk2Yq5U— michael j. babcock (@mikejbabcock) July 12, 2024
The reporters were utterly bewildered by Rice’s reaction. In the aforementioned TMZ Sports video, one can be heard stating that this was “the craziest thing that’s ever happened in my life.”
Incredibly, the legendary wide receiver challenged them to a fight after a simple question about the Kansas City receiving corps.
While Rice eventually spoke with TMZ after calming down, he remained agitated. He firmly believed the reporters were mocking his former team, the 49ers, following their Super Bowl loss to the Chiefs. He even claimed they were smirking while asking the question.
“I’m going to defend the San Francisco 49ers,” Rice told TMZ Sports. “This is my history.”
Noah Gronniger and Clint Switzer of Starcade Media—the two reporters involved in the incident—broke their silence on Friday. They sat on the video but figured that after it made the rounds on social media, they needed to set the record straight on what took place Thursday, which has undoubtedly become a misunderstanding, at least in their eyes.
“We meant absolutely no disrespect to Jerry or the 49ers when asking this question as we have a profound respect for the great players that have played this game, especially (in our opinion) the greatest receiver of all time.
The confrontation that followed was very unfortunate but we were not trying to elicit a negative reaction and there were no “smirks” as Mr. Rice suggested. We simply wanted the input of the greatest receiver in league’s history about the Chiefs receiving corps and if it had improved enough to continue winning at a high level after an historically rough season for the group.
We would be more than open to speaking with Jerry personally to clear the air on what happened and put it all behind us.”
We have sat on this video for a day as we wanted absolutely no negative publicity for Jerry Rice or the tournament but this TMZ story has now come to light and we feel the need to set the record straight on what took place.
We meant absolutely no disrespect to Jerry or the… pic.twitter.com/EJ7OB6QZY5
— Starcade Media (@StarcadeMediaKC) July 12, 2024
The videos are spliced together, but one of Gronniger or Switzer can be heard asking, “OK, do the Chiefs have a good enough receiving core to win again?”
“You a f*cking a**hole, you know that?” Rice said.
This seemingly huge misunderstanding has taken on a life of its own and cast a shadow over Rice on social media. While the reporters have maintained their innocence, they’ve expressed a desire to clear the air with Rice.
Whether or not a reconciliation occurs remains to be seen.
