Former Jets receiver Brandon Marshall recently said he wouldn’t have made it through another season with the team “knowing that we didn’t have a chance.” The man who likely will be the Week One starting quarterback, and who played with Marshall in Chicago, has reacted to that assessment of his new team.
“That’s Brandon’s opinion and Brandon is a friend of mine,” Josh McCown said, via Rich Cimini of ESPN.com. “I love him and he’s entitled to his opinion. I wish him the best at the Giants. We’ve got a direction we’re headed and excited about. I really don’t pay too much attention to it just because guys have different opinions about things, and that’s his. I don’t agree with it, but as a friend, hey, I respect it.”
That’s a fairly mild, and sort of boring, assessment of the situation from McCown. The real question is whether the Jets will be privately reacting to the external criticism and dismissals differently, and whether comments from people like Marshall and most of the media will become motivation for a team that many view as the worst in the league.
Whether ownership secretly wants them to be at the bottom of the NFL, and in turn the top of the draft order, is one thing. Whether the players will go along with that is another. They may not have the talent that they need, but they definitely will have plenty of reason to try to prove plenty of people wrong.