If there’s any feud involving a sports media member — particularly an ESPN personality — you can set your watch to Stephen A. Smith (and us at Awful Announcing) chiming in.
Smith uses The Stephen A. Smith Show platform to talk about subjects he wouldn’t necessarily be afforded to on ESPN’s airwaves. Not that weighing in on the Ryan Clark-Aaron Rodgers feud would be out of the network’s realm, but perhaps spending 13-plus minutes on it would be.
As he does, Smith recapped the brouhaha between Clark and Rodgers. And we will, too.
Clark called out Rodgers in a scathing rant on First Take, labeling the New York Jets quarterback a “fraud,” amongst other things. Nothing about it was thinly veiled, as the former Pittsburgh Steelers safety crushed Rodgers for being “tone-deaf” while holding him over the coals for being “blatantly hypocritical.”
That came in response to Rodgers ripping ESPN for transforming into a bounty of “unfounded” or “asinine” takes while on the network’s airwaves. Rodgers, who doesn’t care what others have to say about him — or so he says — again used The Pat McAfee Show to respond to Clark’s scathing criticism.
And whether he meant it sarcastically or not, Rodgers begged to know Clark’s vaccination status.
In a four-plus minute video posted to X, Clark obliged. He shared that he’d been vaccinated against COVID partly because he has no spleen or gallbladder. That was because he had a splenic infarction due to the sickle cell trait — a risk at high altitudes. That happened because he elected to play in Denver, something he said he’d do again, as he made it a referendum on himself as a teammate and how Rodgers is perceived inside the locker room.
That takes us to Smith, who offered a word of advice to Rodgers.
“In the end, it comes back to what I’ve said about Aaron Rodgers many times: My man, ball, and win,” Smith implored the 41-year-old quarterback. “Because the reality is — as great as you are — you haven’t won a Super Bowl since 2010. You haven’t been to the Super Bowl since 2010. And now your career is going in the wrong direction based on wins and losses. They want you to dial it back, roll it back to next year with you Davante Adams here next season and beyond — do something about it, bro; show us what you got left.”
And while Smith has previously praised McAfee’s Aaron Rodgers interviews, it’s clear that the ESPN personality is uninterested in seeing the future Hall of Famer go after his colleagues.
“Going after Ryan Clark, that ain’t gonna do much for you,” said Smith. “Ryan Clark and I have gone at each other in the past; you don’t have a platform every day like I do. You don’t want to go at Ryan Clark. That is not a winnable situation for you, Aaron Rodgers.”
But perhaps it’s more attainable than helping the Jets end the longest playoff drought in North American professional sports.
“In fact, it’s almost as bad of a situation as it has been you going out on the field on Sundays in the Jets’ uniform,” the First Take star quipped. “You might want to think about that — just friendly words of advice.”
[The Stephen A. Smith Show]
