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New York Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner may only be 23-years-old with just two seasons in the NFL under his belt, but he still isn’t afraid to speak his mind and say things most NFL players would not.
Last month, after his former teammate Mecole Hardman Jr. trashed the Jets and said he “checked out” on the team before being dealt back to the Chiefs, Gardner insinuated and Jets tight end Kenny Yeboah came right out and said that Hardman leaked the Jets’ game plan to the Eagles.
This week, Sauce Gardner appeared on The Pivot, the same podcast that Hardman said “there’s no standard” with the Jets.
“Y’all can’t tell me about winning,” said Hardman. “I’ve been to four Super Bowls in five years. I know what winning looks like. I know what winning is. Y’all not doing it right. We got helmets on the ground, we don’t got no discipline… it’s too many individual egos in this locker room… that’s not gonna get y’all to win.”
Be careful getting information from disgruntled former employees. Getting beat out by a rookie free agent after being guaranteed millions of dollars is tough to deal with. Entitlement is a killer of opportunity. You have to earn it every year.
— Thomas Morstead (@thomasmorstead) February 28, 2024
During his appearance, Sauce Gardner addressed the comments made by Mecole Hardman Jr. about the Jets.
“When I met Mecole, I think it was in Cali, the first thing I thought is like, he talk a lot,” said Gardner.
“So I really wasn’t surprised by him getting on the podcast and just talking about everything. Just talking the way he talk ’cause if you ask me it looked like he was just happy to be there. And it look like he just made y’all job easier ’cause y’all just asked questions and he just sitting there talking the whole time.
“Which is fine ’cause he did ball out. He balled out in the Super Bowl. He had a Super Bowl game wining catch and he won the Super Bowl. I’m happy for him for being able to make that happen.
“But you got to think I really feel like you can’t really discredit the Jets. Especially him, individually, they sent you to a contender team, you know what I’m saying? They sent you back to the Chiefs and you just won the Super Bowl. So I feel like that’s ungrateful and I feel like he shouldn’t have got on there talking about the Jets because he could have just took the high road. You won the Super Bowl and you had the game winning catch.
“The standard, I know he spoke some good things about the defense, but like, the standard is the standard. Everybody got to follow the standard. If the offense can’t make certain things happen that has nothing to do with the standard. They just couldn’t make it happen for whatever reason, we had some missing pieces or whatever.
“Like I said, Coach [Robert] Salah do a great job implementing a standard you know offense defense special teams it’s not no ego driven program. Aaron [Rodgers], yeah he there, but Aaron work his butt off day in and day out.”
“And I know he mentioned like helmets being on the ground. We don’t really have helmets on the ground and I know if it was helmets on the ground his was one of one of the ones that’s on the ground,” Gardner continued.
“If you really know what it takes to win, let me just put you all here, if you know what it takes to win you going to make sure you let the team know. We always around each other. We always in the locker room having fun. We always in the meetings. We always talking to each other at the practice, but the reason he couldn’t do that is because he never earned his stripes. He came into the facility and just thought he had it made.
“If you know what it takes to win, you’re not going to go to practice and drop hella punts and then have excuses as to why you dropped them. You’re not going to go in a special teams meeting and get cussed out by a special teams coordinator.
“It’s just certain things that’s not going to happen if you know what it takes to win.”