Steve Smith holds onto grudges like they’re his life force on the football field. That has been clear throughout Smith’s career but it’s especially true when it comes to his former team, the Carolina Panthers.

After he ate the soul of his former team on Sunday, Smith called into a Charlotte radio station today to essentially call out the Panthers organization for any and all slights that Smith suffered during his exit from Carolina. In typical Steve Smith fashion, he didn’t hold back.

Smith essentially stated that Panthers coach Ron Rivera cowardly avoided him before his release:

“Every time I keep reading stuff and reports come out, I just think I was stabbed in the back. Just like Coach Rivera said he wasn’t a sore loser, but yet he never spoke to me through the whole ordeal. Not one time. He didn’t look at me man-to-man and say this was going down. He said he’s a players’ coach but he never came in and said, ‘Hey, Smitty, this is going on. Wanted to give you a heads up.’ He hid in his office.”

He also called out general manager Dave Gettleman for not even meeting with Smith before releasing him. Gettleman called Smith on the phone after his release.

“He doesn’t even have the cojones to tell us to our face. We have to hear it from someone else. Then he calls and says it wasn’t personal. If the first thing that comes out is, ‘Well, it wasn’t personal,’ then guess what? It was personal.”

Still, his most pointed criticisms were reserved for how the Panthers supposedly released Smith for being a distraction while they kept Greg Hardy on the roster. Steve Smith, as he is wont to do, wasn’t diplomatic when it came to the Panthers and their handling of the Hardy situation:

“I’ve always been a distraction? But I didn’t hit my wife. Yeah, I hit some teammates six or seven years ago, but I didn’t beat my wife. I didn’t get arrested for DUIs. I didn’t fall off no motorcycles…All I did was charity work in Charlotte. I made some mistakes. But building this big ol’ crutch about it like as if I pushed their hand?”

What is clear is that Ron Rivera and Dave Gettleman may have not been the most communicative of people but they’re undoubtedly sane. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would want to be the person who has to deliver Steve Smith some bad news.

[Complex]