Traitor?! Jets Accuse Super Bowl Hero Hardman of Leaking New York Game Plan
Don't look now but we've got ourselves an ol' fashioned NFL Soap Opera, starring Super Bowl hero and former New York Jets bust Mecole Hardman.
The backstory: Last March the receiver signed with the Jets as a free agent. He was a major disappointment, catching only one pass in five games and getting beaten out of the punt-returner job by rookie Xavier Gipson before New York traded him to the Kansas City Chiefs. Hardman ultimately caught the game-winning pass in overtime for the Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII.
Then this week he went on a podcast and blasted the Jets' losing culture.
Said Hardman, "There's no standard there."
To which New York punter Thomas Morstead deliciously clapped back.
“Be careful getting information from disgruntled former employees,” Morstead responded on Twitter. “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.”
But now it's really getting juicy.
Jets players Sauce Gardner and Kenny Yeboah are accusing Hardman - while still on the team - of leaking New York's offensive game plan to his former University of Georgia teammates before the Week 6 game against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Wrote Sauce in a since-deleted post on Twitter: "We ain’t gon talk about how our offensive gameplan got leaked vs. the Eagles tho”
Yeboah then seemed to corroborate those allegations, when he replied to a fan on Twitter who asked about Hardman.
“He ain’t talk about his own work ethic and how the Georgia eagles got our game plan,” Yeboah responded in a tweet.
If true, Hardman's plan to sabotage the Jets didn't work as New York pulled off a 20-14 upset. The receiver was targeted twice in the game without a catch, and was traded three days later.
The Eagles' defense features a number of Georgia alums including Jordan Davis, Nakobe Dean, Keelee Ringo and Nolan Smith.
So far, Hardman hasn't responded to the allegations from his former Jets teammates.