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You have to give the guy credit.
Publicly, Mecole Hardman has never complained about his limited role in the media or on social media, which is very common these days for players. We saw two former Jets do that last year.
On Tuesday, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler announced that the Jets would consider trading the receiver.
On Wednesday, Hardman said when asked about Fowler’s announcement: “If it works for both sides. That’s above me. The first time I heard [about it] was yesterday or two days ago, whenever [the news] broke, so that was the first time I’m hearing it.”
I give the guy a ton of credit. He’s truly talking the high road on this.
Robert Saleh was asked about Hardman not playing on Wednesday:
“I think what we’re missing the opportunity on is to talk about Xavier Gipson,” Saleh said. “Xavier Gipson, since he’s got here, has done a phenomenal job in regards to his kick-return ability.”
While Gipson is very talented, and that return for a TD against Buffalo was electric, he fumbled a punt in Denver recovered by the Broncos. Once again, the guy has a lot of talent, but not sure about the effusive praise for him this particular week, but maybe I’m old-school.
But the issue with Hardman goes deeper than Gipson.
Let’s put the return game on the side for a second. Yes Hardman was inactive this past week, but in the first four games, while active as a receiver, he had one catch for six yards.
And Gipson had one catch for four yards.
Randall Cobb, who is actually higher on the food chain than Hardman and Gipson now, only has 3 catches for 20 yards in five games.
Here is the deal people – when you have a young QB under center who generally goes to his first read, the third or fourth read, whether it’s Hardman or Gipson, isn’t going to see the rock. And barely is Cobb, the #3 option behind Garrett Wilson and Allen Lazard. That is the bottom line. Sorry to be so blunt. I know facts traumatize a lot of people these days.
Watching KC early in the year, considering Patrick Mahomes doesn’t seem to trust most of his receivers, leading to forced passes to Travis Kelce, a return of Hardman to KC in a trade would make sense . . .
As we have mentioned all week, the Jets’ run defense needs to get a whole lot better, especially with the Philadelphia Eagles coming to town.
In their last four games, the Jets have given up up 134 rushing yards to Dallas, 157 to New England, 204 to Kansas City and 139 to Denver.
You keep hearing, well if it wasn’t for a couple of big runs, they were fine.
It doesn’t work that way.
As Bill Parcells always said, “You are what your record says it is.”:
And over the last month, the Jets’ run defense record has not been good.
As Tony Dungy always said, “No excuses, no explanations.”
It’s irrelevant if it was just a couple of runs.
It needs to be fixed.
October 12, 2023
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