Sportswriter calls Aaron Rodgers 'biggest jerk in the league,' won't cast MVP vote for him. Rodgers says 'absolute bum' writer is angry that 'I'm not vaccinated.'

Sportswriter Hub Arkush — one of 50 total Associated Press voters — said in no uncertain terms that he wouldn't be casting a Most Valuable Player ballot for Green Bay Packers' star quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Sports Illustrated reported.

“I don’t think you can be the biggest jerk in the league and punish your team and your organization and your fan base the way he did and be the Most Valuable Player,” Arkush said, according to the magazine, which was citing Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.

But when Rodgers was asked in a Wednesday press conference about Arkush's harsh words, which reportedly included "I think he's a bad guy, and I don't think a bad guy can be the MVP at the same time," Rodgers fired back at Arkush.

'He's an absolute bum ... his problem is I’m not vaccinated'

“I think he’s a bum. I think he’s an absolute bum,” Rodgers said. “He doesn’t know me. I don’t know who he is. No one knew who he was, probably, until yesterday’s comments ... And I listened to the comments, but to say he had his mind made up in the summertime, in the offseason, that ... I had zero chance of winning MVP — in my opinion should exclude [him from] future votes. His problem isn’t with me being a ‘bad guy’ or ‘the biggest jerk in the league’ because he doesn’t know me ... He doesn’t know anything about me. I’ve never met him. I’ve never had lunch with him. I’ve never had an interview with him. His problem is I’m not vaccinated ... So if he wants to go on a crusade and collude and come up with an extra letter to put on the award just for this season and make it the ‘Most Valuable Vaccinated Player,’ then he should do that."

Rodgers then repeated his assertion that Arkush is "a bum, and I’m not gonna waste any time worrying about that stuff. He has no idea who I am. He’s never talked to me in his life. But it’s unfortunate that those sentiments — it’s surprising that he would even say that, to be honest. But I knew this was possible."

NBC Sports reported that Arkush acknowledged Wednesday that he “made a big mistake” making his voting plans public.

Anything else?

Rodgers has been in the headlines quite a bit of late for non-football reasons:

• Leftists lost it after Rodgers, during a Monday Night Football chat with Peyton and Eli Manning, stated that Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" is on his bookshelf.
• In October, Rodgers blasted the "woke mob" and "cancel culture" for being bent on "silencing" and "shrinking" others and called their efforts "comedy."
• And after he was barred from playing a game against the Kansas City Chiefs due to testing positive for COVID-19 in November, he went off on the left for going on a "witch hunt" against those, like himself, who were not vaccinated. Rodgers added in an interview on "The Pat McAfee Show" that those on the left are hypocrites for criticizing former President Donald Trump over his vaccine push — and then embracing vaccines when President Joe Biden took office.
• Rodgers added in the interview that the left is "really gonna hate the fact that I'm 48 hours in [testing positive], and I consulted with a now-good friend of mine Joe Rogan" — who went through a media firestorm after catching COVID and recovering in days after taking certain therapeutics. Rodgers added that "I've been doing a lot of the stuff that [Rogan] recommended in his podcasts and ... I'm gonna have the best possible immunity now."