Jets have 'validated belief' Mecole Hardman leaked game plans to Eagles, Chiefs

There's just something about Chiefs Super Bowl victories and Twitter feuds involving wide receivers. It's becoming an annual tradition.

Only this time, there are far more serious allegations than anything JuJu Smith-Schuster got wrapped up in last year.

Mecole Hardman caught the Super Bowl-winning touchdown against the 49ers. Now he's catching allegations that he leaked Jets game plans to their opponents.

Jets believe Mecole Hardman leaked game plans to Eagles, Chiefs

Connor Hughes of SNY reported the Jets have "validated belief" that Hardman "leaked game plans to the opposition, as implied by several players" like cornerback Sauce Gardner and tight end Kenny Yeboah.

This all came up because of Hardman's appearance on Ryan Clark's Pivot podcast. He talked about how he begged the Chiefs to save him from New York.

Jets punter Thomas Morestead hit back at Hardman, calling him a "disgruntled former employee" whose opinion of the organization couldn't be trusted.

That's when the serious allegations against Hardman started.

"We ain't gon talk about how our offensive gameplan got leaked vs. The Eagles tho," Gardner tweeted. He deleted it shortly after.

Yeboah made similar noises on Twitter: "[Hardman]'s tripping out, he aint talk about his work ethic and how the Georgia eagles got our game plan."

A player leaking game plans to another team isn't something that should be taken lightly. Hardman already opened a can of worms by laying the groundwork for a tampering charge against the Chiefs for contact before he was traded. This is just another layer or complication.

The question is whether the Jets can prove it. All the belief in the world wouldn't be enough to take real action against Hardman.

Hughes' report named the Eagles and Chiefs as teams that allegedly received leaks from Hardman.

Funnily enough, the Jets played well in both of those games. They beat the Eagles and lost a narrow contest to the Chiefs in one of Zach Wilson's best performances of the season.

Does that undercut the allegations that those teams were given an upperhand with knowledge of the Jets' game plan? Maybe, but the issue isn't about how the Eagles or Chiefs used the knowledge. It's about the fact they allegedly had it at all.