Aaron Rodgers was wrong to criticize Mike Williams

A staggering array of rude statements can be justified with comments like “I was just answering a question” or “I was just being honest” or “I was just trying to help” or whatever the person who said the rude thing says after the fact to justify their rudeness.

On Monday night, Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was wrong to publicly criticize receiver Mike Williams for running the wrong route on the play that became the game-sealing interception against the Bills. Rodgers made things worse by trying to word-salad his way out of it during his weekly appearance with Pat McAfee.

“I wasn’t calling Mike out for anything but his responsibility and the details on that play,” Rodgers said. “I have a lot of love and respect for Mike. He does some nice things for us. On that play he wasn’t in the right spot. You can make more of that if you want to, but we all should be held to a standard.”

He’s right. But being held to a standard and being called out publicly are two different things.

Rodgers wouldn’t want to be called out at a press conference by interim coach Jeff Ulbrich for not throwing the ball away when Williams ran the wrong route. Those things are best handled privately.

And who cares if Rodgers was simply answering a question? He’s smart enough (presumably) to provide a response without throwing his teammate under the bus.

“It was just a miscommunication,” he could have said. “I shouldn’t have thrown it.”

But when your best case for being regarded as an all-time great isn’t your Super Bowl wins but your touchdown-to-interception ratio, it’s probably hard to take public responsibility when the number gets reduced by a teammate who did a numbskulled thing.

Rodgers was still wrong to do it. He can say whatever he wants about it now, but he knows he was wrong. And his teammates know he was wrong.

The message to them is simple. You better be careful, buddy; he’s gonna get you next.