It took a week, but Denver Broncos wide receiver Jerry Jeudy offered his side of what happened with Steve Smith prior to last Thursday’s game.
Smith, now with NFL Network, eviscerated Jeudy on last Thursday’s pregame show, claiming that Jeudy rebuffed his efforts to clear the air after Smith’s previous criticisms of the Broncos wide receiver. Jeudy did not really deny that a week later in giving his own version of events for the first time.
Jeudy suggested that he did not know Smith was trying to apologize, but added that he was not going to be automatically friendly and welcoming to someone who had been critical of him.
Jerry Jeudy spoke about the Steve Smith situation 👀
“Where I’m from, when someone talks bad about you behind your back, don’t expect to come to them in person and think everything’s going to be okay.” pic.twitter.com/6t7IBbR1IP
— DNVR Broncos (@DNVR_Broncos) October 19, 2023
“If he say he came to apologize to me, I would understand that and I would have listened to what he had to say,” Jeudy said. “Where I’m from, if somebody talks bad about you, you don’t go to them in person and try to act friendly towards them like you didn’t just talk bad about him. I don’t got no hate toward Steve Smith, he was a good player and all that stuff like that, I just stand on what I stand on.
“If I would’ve knew he would apologize, unfortunately I would’ve reacted different. At the same time, I know somebody’s talking bad about me, I told him what it is and moved on from there. He wanted to take it to the media and stuff and make it bigger than what it needed to be.”
Jeudy had ignored questions about the confrontation after Thursday’s game, which the Broncos lost. His final verdict seems to be that both he and Smith could have handled things differently.
