Sauce Gardner doubles down on criticism of former teammate after Super Bowl win
Sauce Gardner has criticised former New York Jets teammate Mecole Hardman Jr. for a second time this offseason, disputing comments made by the three-time Super Bowl champion.
Hardman, 26, expressed his dissatisfaction with the Jets in late February, reflecting on his seven-month spell with the team last year. He played five games and made zero starts before being traded back to the Kansas City Chiefs midseason, criticising the team's coaches and culture.
Gardner responded to the comments when they were made public, suggesting Hardman had leaked the team's offensive gameplan for a game against the Philadelphia Eagles, which Hardman has denied.
The Jets cornerback has now continued to criticise Hardman on the same podcast, The Pivot, where the initial claims were made. "When I met Mecole ... the first thing I thought is he talks a lot," Gardner said, questioning his winning mentality.
"If you really know what it takes to win, you're going make sure you let the team know. ... The reason he couldn't do that is because he never earned his stripes. He came to the facility and thought he had it made for him."
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Hardman signed a one-year, $4 million deal with the Jets after leaving Kansas City as a free agent, having won his second Super Bowl with the Chiefs. Gardner continued: "If you know what it takes to win, you're not going to go to practice and drop hella punts and then have excuses as to why you're dropping them.
"You're not going to go into a special teams meeting and get cussed out by the special teams coordinator. "There's just certain things that are not going to happen if you truly know what it takes to win. "
Addressing that criticism of the organization, Gardner added: "You can't really discredit the Jets, especially him individually. They sent you back to a contender team. They sent you back to the Chiefs, and you won the Super Bowl. I feel like that's ungrateful.
Hardman scored the game-winning touchdown in the Super Bowl after leaving the Jets (Getty)"I feel like he shouldn't have gone on there, talking about the Jets, because he could've just taken the high road. You just won the Super Bowl, and you had the game-winning catch."
Jets tight end Kenny Yeboah was another Jets player to call Hardman out over the comments earlier this offseason. At the time, he posted on X, formerly Twitter, claiming: "He's tripping out. He ain't talk about his own work ethic and how the Georgia Eagles got our game plan."
That post was also later deleted. By "Georgia Eagles" the insinuation, which Hardman denied, is that he leaked the game plan to the Philadelphia players who played college football at his alma mater, Georgia.
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