Former Patriots defensive end Rob Ninkovich made headlines recently after making comments on his new “Dan and Ninko” podcast about former Patriots quarterback Mac Jones apparently disliking the two-time Super Bowl champ.
“I don’t give a f***, I’ll smack the s*** out of f***ing Mac Jones,” Ninkovich said.
“I don’t care. Do you care if somebody doesn’t like you?”
Ninkovich also did an impression of a whiny Mac Jones press conference from his time as Patriots QB.
This came as a shock to many people, given that Jones and Ninkovich’s apparent beef wasn’t common knowledge. Ninkovich hadn’t made comments like that before, and the two players were never in the league at the same time.
Ninkovich made a surprise call-in to Jones and Keefe on Tuesday to clear the air on his comments.
“Hey, what’s up guys?” Ninkovich cheerily said once he got on the air.
“You sound much more pleasant than you did when you were threatening to fight Mac Jones,” Rich Keefe said. “What was that about?”
“Dude, I wouldn’t fight a quarterback. Are you kidding me? Come on,” Ninkovich said.
“You wouldn’t fight him,” Adam Jones said. “You’d slap the crap out of him is what you said.”
“My dad always told me if you’ve got an issue with somebody, you never strike because it could be an issue. You just embarrass [them], so that could be like a slap,” Ninkovich said.
“I was just calling in because I knew you had the Ninko clip on the impression, it’s all in good fun. ‘Dan and Ninko,’ we just do a little podcast, have fun.”
Ninkovich then described where his frustration with Mac Jones’ time as Patriots quarterback comes from.
“I guess my frustration, and this is what the impersonation was, just at a certain point, you just want production. And it felt like it was constant, over and over, the same, the same, the same,” Ninkovich said.
In his impersonation, Ninkovich quoted Mac Jones’ excuses for his poor performance.
“It was more so a response to my partner saying [Mac] didn’t like me, which, as an adult, I don’t think anyone cares if someone doesn’t like you,” Ninkovich said.
Keefe then asked Ninkovich if he knew Mac Jones personally, saying, “Does he know you to not like you?”
“I have no idea,” Ninkovich said. “Just because of the way I was critical, which, a lot of people were critical of performances, and when you watch football, and as a former player, you just see the issues that were there and the body language sometimes, and it just irked me a little bit, especially as a defender.
“I think having a new start at that position was 100 percent necessary.”
Adam Jones asked Ninkovich how he came up with that impression, jokingly asking if he was using method acting.
“The reason that I did that was because it was kind of the monotony of, ‘Well, well, you know, everyday we’re going to get better’ at a point where you just wanted to see something,” Ninkovich said.
Adam Jones asked if Ninkovich had any final message to Mac Jones if he heard the segment.
“My message to Mac was, and I said that in the pod, I said that I hope he has a great career, I hope he makes a ton of money, I hope he does great. But this is what the New England area needed, to have change.
“There’s been a five-year issue here, so trying to find the next quarterback has been the main thing.”