Stephen A. Smith calls for Patrick Mahomes to take a page out of Aaron Rodgers’ book
Aaron Rodgers' last few offseasons were dotted with complaints about his wide receivers. With Patrick Mahomes now repeatedly seeing wide receivers drop passes, Stephen A. Smith believes that the time for being silent has ended for the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback.
Speaking on First Take, the sports analyst called for Mahomes to turn the spotlight on his teammates.
Here's what Smith said when asked if it was now time for Mahomes to publicly call out Kadarius Toney, Rashee Rice, and others:
"[00:00:04] Yes, I do [believe it's time]. That doesn't mean you excoriate them [or] you throw them under the bus. I'm not talking about something that demonstrative. Enough's enough of constantly talking about something else other than where the real problem lies."
He continued, explaining that Patrick Mahomes didn't need to go head-first into Aaron Rodgers' grumpy rhetoric:
"At some point in time, it's about 'This is where we got to fix because if we fix this, we don't have these problems.' You can be nice about it. ... you don't have to be truculent and all of that about it, but you got to be real at some point. I have no doubt that he's doing this behind closed doors. [00:00:46]"
Did Aaron Rodgers call out Jets wide receivers?
While there are many examples of Aaron Rodgers calling out his receivers in Green Bay, No. 8 has only had one offseason's worth of work in New York. Was that enough time to lodge complaints against his teammates? Put simply, yes, but in an indirect fashion.
According to an episode of Hard Knocks on CBS Sports, Jets wide receiver Randall Cobb reported to his teammates that Rodgers was a little unhappy with the room. Cobb said that Rodgers told him that there were "a lot of mistakes" in practice.
Cobb then predicted that the quarterback was going to start being more vocal if the people committing these mistakes didn't fix themselves. Of course, the quarterback ultimately never got to see the wide receivers in action, so that essentially wrapped his complaints with the unit for the time being.
That said, with Rodgers potentially on pace to return this season, a question is rising of whether complaints will return alongside his miraculously healed Achilles tendon.
If any of the above quotes are used, credit First Take and H/T Sportskeeda.