Jets offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett said it’s about the players and not him when he was asked about his emotions surrounding this weekend’s game against the Broncos in Denver.
Some of those players want to make a little bit of the game about Hackett. Hackett was the head coach of the Broncos for 15 games before being fired last year and he was trashed by new Broncos head coach Sean Payton in an interview this summer.
Center Connor McGovern said that Hackett has not talked about his time in Denver or Payton this week, but that isn’t stopping Jets players from wanting to make sure that their coach leaves town as a winner this time.
“He’s a phenomenal coach, crazy smart, and he makes meetings really fun and easy to learn,” McGovern said, via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com. “So, he’s definitely a guy that you want to play hard for. Then to go to a place that was dogging a guy that’s so nice and so good at his job, and for him to get thrown under the bus and dragged through the mud, you definitely want to play that much harder. . . . He has put his head down to grind. He doesn’t let stuff affect him. But that organization did him dirty, and we definitely want to allow him to get some payback.”
A win would also end a three-game losing streak for the Jets ahead of a Week Six game against the Eagles, so there should be ample motivation for the team this Sunday.
