In July 2023, Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton blamed current Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, a former Broncos head coach (and others), for QB Russell Wilson’s bad 2022 season.
“Oh, man, there’s so much dirt around that,” Payton told USA Today. “There’s 20 dirty hands, for what was allowed, tolerated in the fricking training rooms, the meeting rooms. The offense. I don’t know Hackett. A lot of people had dirt on their hands. It wasn’t just Russell. He didn’t just flip. He still has it. This B.S. that he hit a wall? Shoot, they couldn’t get a play in. They were 29th in the league in pre-snap penalties on both sides of the ball.
“That wasn’t his fault. That was the parents who allowed it. That’s not an incrimination on Wilson but an incrimination on the head coach, the GM, the president and everybody else who watched it all happen.”
After the 2023 season, Payton’s first year coaching Wilson and the Broncos, the coach cut the QB, taking on a record $85 million in dead cap money over two years.
So it turned out Wilson’s struggles in 2022 perhaps weren’t Hackett’s fault. Maybe the QB isn’t the same player he was during his heyday in Seattle.
The Jets play the Broncos on Sunday at MetLife Stadium, and this quote, which turned out to be a tad inaccurate, based on Payton’s actions with Wilson after last season, could serve as extra motivation for the Jets, especially Aaron Rodgers, who loves Hackett.
It’s one thing to attack somebody with a truthful statement, but to smear them on a premise that turned out to be inaccurate is even worse.
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