One of the stranger storylines of the 2023 NFL offseason to date has been the feud developing between Denver Broncos’ head coach Sean Payton and the New York Jets. This started with Payton making surprisingly strong on-the-record criticisms of his predecessor, Nathaniel Hackett, who’s now the Jets’ offensive coordinator. Those blasts for Hackett and the Broncos’ previous staff included that they spent “so much (expletive) time trying to win the offseason,” and a claim that the Jets are now doing the same thing with Hard Knocks (despite that team making it quite clear they’re only on that show because they were forced to be).
Payton’s comments sparked a lot of backlash, including from the Jets. New York head coach Robert Saleh and receiver Randall Cobb both responded to those remarks in pretty strong terms. But the most emphatic response yet may have come from Jets’ new quarterback Aaron Rodgers in an interview with NFL Network’s Peter Schrager:
Aaron Rodgers just went in on Sean Payton in a sitdown with @PSchrags on NFL+. It ended with Rodgers saying Payton needs to “keep my coach’s name out of his mouth.”
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) July 30, 2023
Here is Aaron Rodgers’ comments about Sean Payton and his comment about Nathaniel Hackett this week. Rodgers calls Payton “insecure” and says he should keep his coach’s name out his mouth. 👀👀👀👀👀👀 pic.twitter.com/7ISPvJBl5s
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) July 30, 2023
This is not the first rather personal reaction from Rodgers. Amongst many other things, he’s been previously seen calling media coverage of his vaccination status a “witch hunt,” going after Molly Knight for a “disinformation” piece on his toe that she didn’t write, and telling Adam Schefter “Lose my number.”
But it is interesting to see Rodgers going after a NFL coach rather than a media member. Even if Payton did later backtrack from his initial comments a bit with “I had my Fox hat on, and not my coaching hat.” And this adds further spice to the Week 5 matchup between the teams, which will take place on Oct. 8 in Denver.
[Mike Garafolo on Twitter]
