Aaron Rodgers gave Ryan Clark the cold shoulder.
Rodgers declined a meeting with Clark when the ex-Steeler and current ESPN personality recently visited Pittsburgh’s training camp amid lingering beef between the two.
“I feel like there were a lot of people excited to see me in camp, and then there was one, and it’s cool, though,” Clark on the “Football America!” show. “It strangely enough made me respect him.”
Rodgers and Clark had a war of words during the offseason that got personal, and it seems that one party is not yet to ready move on.
Clark said on the show he has “nothing against” Rodgers and wanted to sit down with him during his visit to his former team he played for from 2006-13.
“I’m a part of the history there, he’s the quarterback with our team now. I actually don’t dislike him,” Clark said. “I want to sit with him, welcome him to Steeler nation, and just kind of have a conversation. I didn’t want to have a conversation about that. I wanted to talk about his career. Said over and over again, he’s the best quarterback I ever played against.”
Rodgers, though, declined the invitation.
“He had other things to do, which I respected. But when we were pulling up to campus, he was talking to (offensive coordinator) Arthur Smith, like when we were going up the hill,” Clark said. “For me, if I truly don’t have an issue with you, I’m going to speak to you. I’m going to say hello. It’s rude not to, in my opinion. So, he was talking to Arthur Smith. I talked to some of the guys I see coming from the special teams meeting. I roll the window down and I’m like, ‘What’s up guys.’ Arthur Smith kind of speaks. Aaron Rodgers looks at me and he doesn’t say anything.”
Clark, though, didn’t have any issues with the snub.
“But I respect it because he was like I’m not going to be fake. For whatever he feels or whatever it is, he’s like that’s not someone that I fool with in that way and I’m not going to fake it. It set the tone that, hey, you and I don’t talk. When I was on the field, I had to say nothing to him, he didn’t say anything to me. But I did get a chuckle out of it.”
The drama between the two goes back to the offseason.
Clark criticized Rodgers’ leadership last October while the Jets struggled, saying he’s “devoid of the great leadership ability” to lift a locker room.
The 41-year-old Steelers quarterback then called out those in the media who he said had forgettable careers.
“I’m talking about these experts on TV who nobody remembers what they did in their career,” Rodgers said in December. “So in order for them to stay relevant, they have to make comments that keep them in the conversation. That wasn’t going on in 2008, 2009. The ‘SportsCenter’ of my youth, those guys made highlights so much fun. And that’s what they showed on ‘SportsCenter.’
Clark then called Rodgers a fraud.
“The reason you’re getting the opportunity to say these asinine things is because someone is paying you— exactly like the people you’re calling out,” Clark said in response.
“This dude is a fraud. He’s been a fraud. He acts like he’s above everybody and everything.”
Rodgers signed a one-year deal with the Steelers this offseason after his failed two-year Jets tenure, and has indicated this will be his final season.
Pittsburgh ironically opens the season on the road against the Jets in Week 1.
