UNDATED (WTAQ) - A day after Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers denied an exchange took place the way it was written in a biography about Brett Favre, the author of the book is speaking out.
"I 100 percent stand by it...you know it's the second Packer to say that something I wrote wasn't true and it really makes me angry," says Jeff Pearlman, on Thursday's edition of the Jerry Bader Show. "I have zero doubt about it."
At issue is an excerpt from Pearlman's book "Gunslinger: The Remarkable, Improbable, Iconic Life of Brett Favre" which reads:
In fact, that morning Favre was alone, sitting in the team cafeteria and reading a newspaper, when Rodgers saw him in person for the first time. The new quarterback approached the old quarterback and uttered what will forever go down as the worst introductory line in the history of professional sports.
"Good morning, grandpa!"
Silence.
On Wednesday, Rodgers responded to that excerpt by saying:
"The first time I met Brett was on the practice field and I could barely get a sentence out of, "Hello, my name is Aaron." Did I call him grandpa any time during our three years together? Probably, but it's in the same joking way that my man Brett Hundley called me grandpa three weeks ago when we were doing competitive drills, so the story that was out there that I saw is completely one hundred percent false."
Pearlman, who referred to his notes from the book during Bader's show, says he spoke with former Packers backup quarterback Craig Nall.
"He was one of two guys who I was repeatedly told, this is a guy you need to talk to with the Packers," Pearlman said. "He was a backup, he was close with Brett, he was in all the meetings, he's reliable and he's smart."
It's this kind of comment from the 33-year-old Rodgers which angers him, since he holds precision, detail and accuracy in the highest regard when working on books like this.
"Then I run it by other people who verify Rodgers called him grandpa, Favre hated it, and then go into other things about it," remarks Pearlman. "If you look at Rodgers' statement, is it theoretically possible that it was not the first thing he said to Favre? That maybe he saw him earlier that morning, maybe he saw him earlier that day? I will concede that, that is not what he's trying to imply, he's trying to imply that he didn't say that."