New York Jets’ Aaron Rodgers hits back at Broncos’ Sean Payton for Nathaniel Hackett criticism. What did he say?

New York’s new star quarterback stepped into the fray and has made it clear that he doesn’t appreciate the critique of his offensive coordinator, a man with whom he’s had a relationship prior to his arrival in the ‘Big Apple.’

Aaron Rodgers hits back at Sean Payton

We can now add Aaron Rodgers’ name to the list of people who have hit back at Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton for his criticism of former head coach and new offensive coordinator for the New York Jets, Nathaniel Hackett. If you missed our previous report, Payton laid the blame squarely at Hackett’s feet when speaking about the disastrous 2022-23 season in Denver, calling it “one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL.” Further to that, Payton also took issue with the way in which the Jets have spent their offseason, something which New York’s own head coach, Robert Saleh, has since responded to.

Interestingly, Hackett, who as mentioned above is now with the Jets, was actually the offensive coordinator for the Green Bay Packers prior to his stint in Denver, meaning it was he who was behind Rodgers during his back-to-back MVP seasons (2020 and 2021). With that in mind, it’s no surprise that Rodgers himself took issue with Payton’s recent critique of a man with whom he has worked closely and now has the opportunity to do so again. Speaking with the media Rodgers referred to Hackett as “arguably my favorite coach,” before going on to say “I love Nathaniel Hackett. Those comments were very surprising, for a coach to do that to another coach. My love for [Hackett] goes deep. We had some great years together in Green Bay, kept in touch. Love him and his family. He’s an incredible family man, an incredible dad. On the field, he’s arguably my favorite coach I’ve ever had in the NFL. His approach to it, how he makes it fun, how he cares about the guys, just how he goes about his business is with respect, with leadership, with honesty, with integrity and it made me feel bad that someone who has accomplished a lot in the league is that insecure that they have to take another man down to set themselves up for some sort of easy fall if it doesn’t go well for that team this year. Thought it was way out of line, inappropriate and I think he needs to keep my coaches’ names out of his mouth.”

Does Sean Payton have a point?

We mentioned before that Payton had also criticized the Jets themselves for what he believes is a greater focus on the PR aspects of the offseason than building a better team, referencing the franchise’s appearance in HBO’s award-winning reality TV series, ‘Hard Knocks’. In his response to Payton’s comments, Jets head coach Robert Saleh declined to return fire, but did go as far as to say that “there are a lot of crows pecking at our neck.” While we’re not sure what the next twist will be in this apparent war of words, we do know that the Broncos and Jets will face off in Week 5 of the coming season, and we have no intention of missing that game.