The Jets Are Still Being Huge Pusses About Sam Darnold 'Seeing Ghosts'
CBS NY – The New York Jets are disappointed and angry quarterback Sam Darnold‘s comment about him “seeing ghosts” made it on air during the “Monday Night Football” game. …
“That was one of those things that was really disappointing to hear about after the game,” coach Adam Gase said Tuesday. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that where somebody that was mic’d up, that a comment like that was allowed to be aired. It bothers me. It bothers the organization.”
Gase added that the Jets will be “looking hard into our cooperation” with the networks going forward.
NYDN - There’s a trust between teams and NFL Films to keep comments that could potentially embarrass players, coaches or teams off air. That’s why most mic’d up comments on broadcasts are hardly inflammatory.
The Jets, who didn’t sign off on the comment being used, are understandably upset that NFL Films cast their quarterback in an unflattering light.
ESPN – NFL Films had a representative at MetLife Stadium and cleared Darnold’s “ghosts” remark for TV.
The NFL had no immediate comment on the matter. ESPN, which has the freedom to decide which clips to use, deferred comment to NFL Films.
Holy moly. I knew that facing this incarnation of the Patriots defense could drive you to do stupid things. I learned Sunday that it could make a quarterback see the dead.
A day or so later and we’re finding out it can drive an entire region – OK, the tiny minority of that region who self-identify as Jets loyalists – insane.
Adam Gase is proving he doesn’t know how to pronounce “No comment.” I can appreciate Le’Veon Bell trying to stick up for a teammate, but the whole Jets organization sounds like they’re more concerned with Sam Darnold being embarrassed by the “ghost” comment going out over the air than they’re embarrassed about getting their dicks kicked in the dirt or being 1-6. And it’s gotten so crazy that ESPN is refusing to comment about an ESPN broadcast to … ESPN.
Meanwhile everyone’s reaching out to guys like Brett Favre and Kurt Warner to please assure the public this is no big deal and make it go away:
To his credit, the one guy who doesn’t have a problem with it is Sam Darnold. At least he recognizes he’s got a lot bigger issues with something he said into a mic. Like the fact he posted a Passer Rating of 3.6. He on his weekly radio appearance on The Michael Kay Show he said, “I’m not embarrassed by it. It is what it is. … It’s a lot more common a phrase than it’s being made out to be.” Which is exactly the right attitude to have.
But I guess this is where we’re at now? We want unfiltered access to these guys but at the same time want them protected? We want to see them be real, but just not too real? To get to see the whole picture, except for the embarrassing parts? I just don’t get it.
I’ll avoid the obvious comparison to my own quarterback, who’s gone viral a few times in screaming matches on the sidelines with his coordinators. And instead I’ll just go way back to the guy you youngsters would call the OG. Who didn’t mind at all being mic’d up, even if it made him look bad.
Or the best there ever was on a sidelines with a live mic on him. And who knows more about football in New York than any man alive. Like Bill Parcells puts it at the :30 mark, “You’ve got to be able to laugh at yourself a little bit now. If you can’t do that in this league, in this game, you’ve got a problem. I will not allow my players to be too sensitive. … When I get my shots, I take them. But that’s fun. I like that part of it.”
Like I said, at least Darnold is talking like he has the right attitude. I just don’t know how this franchise expects to move forward toward respectability when they’re this this worried about a bad look or the feelings of their most important player.