With the conclusion of the HBO Sports and NFL Films original series, Hard Knocks, plenty of media personalities are divulging their opinions about the five-part endeavor. “Gang Green” is led by superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers, wide receiver Garrett Wilson and cornerback Ahmad “Sauce” Gardner, with a litany of young, all-star players garnering an insatiable appetite for a Super Bowl championship.
The Jets will first seek to break a 12-year playoff drought, and head coach Robert Saleh has tried to make his team cognizant of the fact that playing hard is not the expectation of the team. In fact, Saleh remarked that it is his biggest pet peeve when other head coaches commend the effort level of his team after a loss.
Fred Toucher is a fan of the New York Jets, but since he hosts radio shows in Boston, Mass. on 98.5 The Sports Hub, he has been unable to attend a game at MetLife Stadium. This year, he is hoping to change that, realizing that he has a friend who lives by the stadium and could potentially take him to the airport. Since he is a morning host, Toucher surmises that he would need to go to a 1 p.m. game, but the problem lies in that only half of the Jets eight home games kick off at that time.
“I figured since the Jets are going to the Super Bowl and everything, I could finally take my son to MetLife Stadium,” Toucher said. “….One of [the games is] a Patriots game, but I can’t go to that one, and I believe they only have one other one at home, and that is an Atlanta Falcons game in early December. But such is the price for being the talk of all athletics.”
Co-host Rich Shertenlieb interjected by conveying that Saleh reminds him of former Boston Red Sox outfielder Johnny Gomes. He made the assumption because Gomes was very confident in himself, something that the Jets’ head coach exhibited with his protracted speeches that include elements of storytelling.
“It has been an entire preseason of Hard Knocks of him having speeches like that,” Shertenlieb said.
Through his remarks, Shertenlieb seemed to affirm that Saleh was embellishing his interactions or exaggerating parts of training camp. A comparison was made to Dan Campbell, head coach of the Detroit Lions, and the genuine passion he exuded when his team was featured on the show last season.
“The guy’s got a camera on him all week,” Toucher said of Saleh. “I don’t know what the coaches who don’t have cameras on them talk like.”
“Dan Campbell – that’s who he is,” Shertenlieb said. “This is Saleh ramping it up.”
Toucher has not watched an episode of the show since the first week but has viewed several clips from the hit series. Within his observations, he noticed how expletives were often used around the training facility, something Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo deemed as excessive Wednesday morning on First Take. Show anchor Jon Wallach noticed the same thing and felt like Saleh was redundantly featured during the series.
“It seems like now that I’m hearing [the speeches] over and over again, either I’m getting tired of it or I’m seeing him more as a try-hard than I did before,” Wallach said. “….All the spotlighting of Saleh and, ‘We’re going to kick your ass.’ Enough.”
The New York Jets open the 2023 NFL regular season on Monday Night Football on Monday, Sept. 11 against the Buffalo Bills at 8:15 p.m. EST/5:15 p.m. PST. Two weeks later, the Jets face off against the New England Patriots in their second home game of the season in a matchup that is sure to intrigue a wide portion of fans in the northeast region of the United States.
