Interesting choice of words

It was a hot quote on the internet today:

“Through these first six weeks, we’ve played a gauntlet of quarterbacks,” Jets coach Robert Saleh said after the Jets beat the Philadelphia Eagles. “I know we haven’t gotten all wins, but we’ve embarrassed all of them.”

Longtime Dallas reporter Mike Fisher took umbrage with the idea that the Jets embarrassed Cowboys QB Dak Prescott in Week 2:

Headline: “Dak Prescott ‘Embarrassed’ by Jets? A Bold, False Claim.”

“And Dak? Whatever the Jets and the NFL audience thinks of him – the Jets certainly did not “embarrass” him,” wrote Fisher for Sports Illustrated’s Dallas Cowboys site. “In that game at AT&T Stadium in Week 2, the Cowboys won 30-10. Prescott was 31 of 38 for 255 yards, with two TDs, no interceptions and one sack, with a QB Rating of 112.2.”

Now Saleh has backed away from that comment about Dak, but it’s surprising he made that statement in the first place? He didn’t remember that game when he made the initial statement?

First of all, the choice of the word “embarrass” is a strong one, and could serve as major motivation moving forwards, let’s say by Bills QB Josh Allen on November 19 when the Jets visit Buffalo.

Or let’s say the Jets make the playoffs and have to face Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes again.

The use of the word “embarrassment” was perhaps a mistake.

If you want to say something like we “got the better of” some good quarterbacks this year, that is probably a better approach.

Embarrassed?

Some might argue that it was embarrassing when tight ends like New England’s Pharoah Brown, Kansas City’s Noah Gray and Denver’s Adam Trautman were wide open for touchdowns, when they all got in back of the Jets defense.

Or it would have been embarrassing if Eagles WR A.J. Brown had caught that long pass where he got behind the Jets secondary, but it went off his fingertips.

Look, don’t get me wrong, the Jets’ defense has played well since the Dallas game, but let’s not put them in Canton.

They have a lot of work to do.

And the idea that they embarrassed three QBs, who beat them this year, Prescott, New England’s Mac Jones and Mahomes, is a theory that some might argue with.

You are what your record says it is. The Jets lost to Dallas, New England and Kansas City. It’s in the books. The NFL is a results-based business. Surely those QBs supposedly being embarrassed is okay with them since they won.

It is embarrassing for the Jets to have to settle for nine field goals and no passing touchdowns in the last couple of weeks?

You could say Denver and Philadelphia embarrassed the Jets QB.

But they didn’t, because the Jets won.

The Jets’ QB, like the Dallas, New England and Kansas City’s QBs, wasn’t embarrassed, since they won.

But any way you slice it, “embarrassed” is a bad choice of words for how you talk about opponents.

And some will certainly keep receipts on that statement.

October 16. 2023

Premium will return by 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday.