Tony Kornheiser Takes Aaron Rodgers Criticism Surprisingly Well

During a recent radio appearance, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers spoke frankly about former Monday Night Football third wheel Tony Kornheiser saying in part that, "He's terrible... I don't think he's funny. I don't think he's insightful. I don't think knows anything about sports."

And not many people disagreed with the assessment including, it turns out, Mr. Tony. Via The Big Lead:

"My guess is that his comments had to do with the fact that during his first season, I was publicly critical of the Packers, which had a 13-3 team, and got rid of [Brett] Favre for an untested player," Kornheiser said. "Jaws and I went back and forth on this 1,000 times on TV and with Wilbon 1,000 times on TV. But if he thinks I'm no good, he wouldn't be the first. Or the last."

Rodgers also said that Kornheiser appeared unprepared during a MNF preproduction meeting ("You get in there with Tony and he's asking you all these dumb questions that have no application to the game you are playing or anything you are doing."). Mr. Tony's response:

"I don't remember anything particular from the meetings, but I do remember that Jaws went in purely looking for football stuff, Mike [Tirico] was looking for stuff from the announcing angle, and I went looking more for feature-y things or stories," he said. "In that case, the theme was taking over for Brett Favre, which was the toughest thing to do in Green Bay. My guess is that I asked a lot of questions relative to that, and tried to establish some rapport with that. I guess that rapport didn't exist."

As Michael David Smith points out on PFT, in addition to not having a rapport with Rodgers, Kornheiser also failed to build a rapport with fans. The "I have no idea what I'm doing!" shtick grew old fast and after a couple seasons, ESPN mercifully replaced Kornheiser with Jon Gruden.