Sauce Gardner had a rough day at the office during Sunday’s loss to the Cardinals, missing a tackle after having tight end Trey McBride wrapped up before the line to gain before McBride shrugged him off, ran for a first down, and set up an Arizona touchdown to put the game out of reach.
Gardner took to X (formerly known as Twitter) after the game to call out critics who he believed were putting too much stock in the missed tackle and its impact on the final score, though he shortly deleted the posts afterward.
It wasn’t Gardner’s first time being active on social media after Jets losses, and Boomer says it would benefit the young cornerback to simply stay off social media on game days.
“My advice to Sauce Gardner is to put the damn phone down. Put it down!” Boomer said. “The last two years, everyone is talking about how you’re the best player at your position. So it was two years of adulation and how great you are. All of a sudden, you have a couple bad games and miss some tackles, people go after you, and you want to start fighting people?”
Aaron Rodgers has talked about “flushing the bulls--t” in the Jets locker room and getting rid of anything that doesn’t have to do with winning, and that doesn’t seem to be happening, especially when Gardner is consistently arguing with critics on social media. Boomer says it would likely help the players to just ignore the noise, stay off their phones, and focus on improving on the field.
“Stop defending and just play ball, man,” Boomer said. “I wish he would just put it down, and this offseason, just work on his golf game.
“If I were a coach, I would want to be like a school teacher and say ‘Hey guys, can we put the phones in our caddies until after the game, and can we focus?’”