Sean Payton is walking back his biting comments on predecessor Nathaniel Hackett’s stint in Denver.
The new Denver Broncos head coach, who ripped Hackett’s coaching job with the team last season in an interview with USA Today, said he had regrets less than an hour after his comments.
“I had one of those moments where I still had my Fox hat on and not my coaching hat on,” Payton said during a press conference Friday. “I said this to the team in the meeting yesterday. We’ve had a great offseason relative to that, and I’ve been preaching that message. And here I am, the veteran. You know, stepping in it. It was a learning experience for me. It was a mistake, obviously. I needed a little bit more filter … I said what I said, and, obviously, I needed a little bit more restraint, and I regret that.”
Payton laid into Hackett, who is now the Jets’ offensive coordinator, on Thursday, describing his 2022 season at the helm of the Broncos as “one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL.”
The former New Orleans Saints head coach also took shots at the Jets during his interview with USA Today, implying that the team is “trying to win the offseason” and public relations game rather than put in the work – comments that New York head coach Robert Saleh fired back on.
“As far as what we have going on here, you know I kind of live by a saying that, ‘If you ain’t got no haters, you ain’t poppin.’ ’ So hate away,” Saleh said Thursday.
“Obviously, we’re doing something right if you have to talk about us and we don’t play you until Week [5] and I’m good with it. The guys in our locker room, they’ve earned everything that’s coming to them.”
Payton acknowledged Saleh directly Friday during his apology.
“I think the world of Robert,” he said. “I know him. I don’t know Nathaniel. But at the right time. It certainly will bring more interest in the game when we play them, but that seems like years from now. But I’ll handle it the right way.”
The Broncos disappointed last season, going 5-12 and finishing last in the AFC West during the first year of the Russell Wilson era in Denver.
Wilson had the worst season of his career, throwing just 16 touchdown passes with 11 interceptions, for which Hackett was to blame, according to Payton on Thursday.
“There’s so much dirt around that,” Payton told USA Today. “There’s 20 dirty hands, for what was allowed, tolerated in the fricking training rooms, the meeting rooms. The offense. I don’t know Hackett. A lot of people had dirt on their hands. It wasn’t just Russell. He didn’t just flip. He still has it.
“This B.S. that he hit a wall? Shoot, they couldn’t get a play-in. They were 29th in the league in pre-snap penalties on both sides of the ball.”
Payton even blamed last year’s coaching staff for allowing Wilson’s personal quarterback coach, Jake Heaps, into team facilities and practices.
“That wasn’t (Wilson’s) fault,” Payton said. “That was the parents who allowed it. That’s not an incrimination on him, but an incrimination on the head coach, the GM, the president, and everybody else who watched it all happen … Everything I heard about last season, we’re doing the opposite.”
Hackett and the Jets will visit the Broncos in the Mile High City on Oct. 8.