Aaron Rodgers Fires Away At Critics After Bounce Back Game, 'Absolute Horses***'

Aaron Rodgers is letting his trolls HAVE IT today after he returned to MVP form against the Lions ... slamming his critics and calling their vitriol last week "absolute horses***."

"It's chicken s***," the Packers star said on "The Pat McAfee Show" on Tuesday afternoon. "It's so ridiculous that people get a platform to do this and it's the same type of people."

Rodgers was lambasted by media members and even one of his former teammates, Jermichael Finley, after he was awful in Green Bay's opening game against the Saints.

Finley said Rodgers looked like he had lost his "hunger" to play ... and added to TMZ Sports that he believed the Packers should seriously consider benching the guy for backup Jordan Love.

While Rodgers didn't mention Jermichael by name in his rant Tuesday ... he made it clear after balling out on "Monday Night Football" that he heard ALL of the negative rhetoric thrown his way after the Week 1 loss -- and he didn't like it one bit.

"I was just surprised after Week 1 that there was such a story out there," Rodgers said. "What's crazy to me is to let one storyline, by a person who has no contact with me, who I have zero relationship, to that become some sort of narrative that's out there that now I somehow don't care about ball because of my Zen attitude in the offseason, that's the bulls*** I was talking about last night."

Rodgers did say he anticipates more ups and downs throughout the season ... but he's clearly hopeful the criticism is kept to a minimum as Green Bay goes through it all.