When asked Thursday afternoon about controversial comments Broncos head coach Sean Payton made about his football team, Jets head coach Robert Saleh didn't take the bait.
"I am not going to acknowledge Sean on that. He has been in the league a while; he can say whatever the hell he wants. I live by the saying if you ain't got no haters, you ain't popping. So hate away. Obviously we are doing something right, if we don't play you until week 5.
There is a lot of crows pecking at our neck. But all you can do is spread your wings until those crows fall off."
Earlier in the day, Payton was quoted in USA Today blasting the Jets for winning the off-season, and calling current Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, who was the Broncos head coach a year ago, as performing "one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL."
Said Payton: "We're not doing any of that," he said alluding to the Jets Hard Knocks appearance. "The Jets did that this year. You watch. 'Hard Knocks,' all of it. I can see it coming. Remember when [former Washington owner] Dan Snyder put that Dream Team together? I was at the Giants [in 2000]. I was a young coach. I thought, 'How are we going to compete with them? Deion's [Sanders] there now.' That team won eight games or whatever. So, listen … just put the work in."
It's odd that Payton would take such veiled shots. This is a guy who came from the Bill Parcells coaching tree, and Parcells was never known as dishing out bulletin board material as a coach. In fact it was typically frowned upon.
It is also wild that Payton would rip a fellow NFL coach as doing a historically bad job. Even if he is right in such an assumption, to let that out in the media is a poor job on his part.
Also, it's not like the Jets wanted to do Hard Knocks. Quiet the contrary, they did everything they could to NOT do it. It was the NFL that wanted them on the program this summer.
As for Saleh, he took the high road, even though he was clearly upset by the comments. It's not the first time that he has used knocks on his football team to rev up his players.
Last year, Saleh was not pleased with the amount of criticism his team took after its Week 1 loss to Baltimore and proclaimed, "We're all taking receipts on all the people who continually mock and say that we ain't going to do anything,”
The Jets went on to win six of their next seven games after that statement.
The Jets beat the Broncos (then coached by Hackett) last year 16-9. The two rivals, who haven't really been heated rivals since their AFC Championship match-up back in 1998, will meet again in Week 5. Get ready for some receipts talk to commence that week.
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