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
Don’t expect a Gang Green reunion with Mecole Hardman this offseason.
“No,” Hardman recently told NFL Network’s Andrew Siciliano, “I won’t go back to the Jets.”
Any lingering hard feelings are understandable after the wideout appeared in just five games with New York after signing a one-year, $4 million deal, making one catch for six yards in the overhauled offense.
Hardman was eventually traded to the Chiefs, for whom he played the first four seasons of his career.
The move paid off, with Hardman catching three passes for 58 yards — including the title-clinching touchdown — in Kansas City’s Super Bowl 2024 win over the 49ers.
Whether the big game in the Big Game – Hardman’s third title with the Chiefs — was enough to convince the Chiefs to run it back with the receiver remains to be seen.
“Right now you’re just hearing talk and seeing what’s going on, people’s ideas,” Hardman told Siciliano. “And you’ll probably get a better idea as the week goes on. But whenever free agency starts, you’ll know. But we’ll see if they want me back. If not, might be somewhere else. So, we’ll see.”
Still, there’s one place the 25-year-old assuredly won’t end up when NFL free agency opens on Mar. 14.
He was still trying to unpack where his failed Jets tenure went wrong ahead of his latest Super Bowl win.
Hardman finished the 2023 season with 15 catches for 124 yards and scored his lone touchdown when he hauled in a three-yard pass from Patrick Mahomes in overtime of this year’s Super Bowl.
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“It was a roller coaster,” he said. “Things definitely didn’t go like I wanted it to go. I guess I just wasn’t on the same page with everybody.”