Packers' Aaron Jones Tried to Break Up a Fight, Got Socked in the Face
By Kyle Koster
The Green Bay Packers won a loser-leaves-town game against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday night to greatly improve their chances of making the playoffs. It was a rather sleepy affair with not much more energy than Ryan Seacrest hosting Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve as the home team mounted precious little fight or resistance. Until backup Packers quarterback Sean Clifford came in during mop-up duty and completed a 37-yard pass to secure some kneeldowns and a 33-10 final score. That the Vikings seemed to mind.
Tensions boiled up during the postgame bro-hugs and jersey-swapping and resulted in some roving donnybrooks, one of which came close to Green Bay running back Aaron Jones. His attempt to play peacemaker earned him an actual knuckle sandwich.
Jones was asked about the incident during his celebratory toast with Melissa Stark and explained that he was simply trying to stop the violence. She congratulated him on a job well done de-escalating tensions, which is nice and all but I'm not sure something you can say to someone who took an errant pop to the kisser intervening.
Studying the footage like the Zapruder film, it sure seems like Jones was also the victim of friendly fire here. And that sucks. Because you can't even use the punch as divisional motivation going forward.
Oh well. He's not the only person who had to rush in because their buddy was fighting someone shortly before the ball drop and woke up busted and sore this morning. He might be the only one who rushed for 120 yards, though.