Steve Smith believes he was released by David Gettleman and the Carolina Panthers for personal reasons.

"Yes, it was personal with me and Dave Gettleman," Smith said Wednesday on Charlotte radio station WFNZ. "Obviously, I did something that got under his skin."

Smith had called into the station Wednesday to refute an NFL Network report aired last week saying he had refused a pay cut and instead asked for a release from the Panthers.

 

"You wake up in the morning after a good win, and you just read reports about [how] you demand this and demand that," Smith said. "Man, I just find it interesting."

Gettleman allegedly told Smith that he wasn't as good as he formerly was, while also serving as a distraction to the team.

"I say, 'Well, is this about a pay cut?'" Smith said of a conversation with Gettleman. "He laughs and says, 'No, this is not about a pay cut, but thanks for asking.' And then says, 'We're going to trade you.'

"... I pick up myself, walk out, shower and I call my wife and say, 'We're done here. I will either be traded or released.' I knew from the jump I was going to be released or traded."

Smith first heard of his release on the radio.

"He doesn't even have the cojones to tell us to our face,'' Smith said. "We have to hear it from someone else. Then he calls and says, like everyone else says, 'It wasn't personal.'

"If the first thing that comes out is, 'It wasn't personal' ... Guess what? It was personal. Then he says that [I] could have called at any time. And now that I played well, you're going to say I was a distraction, I've always been a distraction.

"But yet, I didn't beat 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. ... I made mistakes, but building this big old crutch about it as if I pushed their hands."