Greg Jennings just can’t let it rest

Greg Jennings and Aaron Rodgers in better times. Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports photograph

The questions were flying at him like Aaron Rodgers bullets, but Greg Jennings didn’t hesitate to continue to fuel the fires of contention today during his interview with the gang on ESPN – saying that Brett Favre basically deserves more respect than does his other former quarterback Rodgers.

In a tit-for-tat that’s been going on between Rodgers and Jennings since the former Packers wide receiver decided to jump the Mississippi in April, many have felt that it was good old-fashioned ribbing between the two up to this point. That is until you listen to the interview that is posted below.

Jennings was asked over and over by Stephen A. Smith about his decision to move on to Minnesota, despite the notion that he was leaving a perennial All-Pro quarterback in Rodgers in favor of the untested and unproductive Christian Ponder.

Jennings says that it’s all about team – “Brett Favre? Receivers around him. Aaron Rodgers? Receivers around him. Christian Ponder? Receivers around him.”

While he may have a point, I can remember many years that Brett Favre played with very few elite wide receivers. He played with good receivers, not great – here I mention the names of the likes of Corey Bradford, Charles Lee, Bill Schroeder, and Robert Ferguson. I wouldn’t run out to draft guys like that to my fantasy team.

He also said that his decision to move on to Minnesota was all about change and the timing for a change. He may be right about that, but no matter how much he praises his new quarterback, there’s no getting around the fact that there’s no comparison between Rodgers and Ponder. And no matter how many times or how many ways Jennings disses Rodgers, he will have a difficult time by season’s end justifying what he has said up to this point.

But Jennings won’t give it a rest – once again he disses his former quarterback, saying “you get respect when you give respect.”

Now, in my mind, I have to ask why a fine, Christian gentleman like Jennings would call out a former teammate in this manner? To what end? To justify his decision to move on to another team?

If he’s talking about respect, that statement in itself is completely disrespectful to Rodgers.

Don’t get me wrong, Jennings also describes how “blessed” he was to play for the Green Bay Packers and even went so far as to describe how much he enjoyed playing for his former head coach, Mike McCarthy.

That’s all well and good, but then the next thing out of his mouth is how great Brett Favre was as a player and how much better he was than Rodgers. Nobody’s going to deny the greatness of Favre and what he did for the Green Bay Packers, but why would he even entertain the notion of a comparison between the two quarterbacks?

In my opinion – to stir the pot – to get under the skin of his former team and teammates and to play the mind games he hopes are successful in giving his new team an advantage.

Well, his new team is going to need a whole lot more than mind games to defeat the Packers in 2013. They will need a quarterback who can get the ball to his receivers. Whether or not Greg Jennings helps that along remains to be seen.

But in the meantime, he just needs to keep his mouth shut and get down to business. That’s where it really matters.

Judge for yourself. This nine-minute video has all sorts of verbal gems in it and it’s worth the time to review.

Enjoy …