Did Eagles Cheat - With Chiefs Hero Mecole Hardman's Help? NFL Must Investigate Scandal

'Game Plan Leaked!' Did Dallas Cowboys Rival Eagles Cheat - With Kansas City Chiefs Hero Mecole Hardman's Help? NFL Must Investigate Scandal

Mecole Hardman will forever go down as a "Super Bowl hero.'' But to those who know the Kansas City Chiefs receiver - and even to those who are fond of him - he's considered a knucklehead.

But now comes a story that isn't silly as the former member of the Jets is being accused by New York teammates of leaking the team's playbook to the Philadelphia Eagles before the Week 6 Jets-Eagles game.

Jets players Sauce Gardner and Kenny Yeboah are accusing Hardman of leaking New York's offensive game plan to the Dallas Cowboys' rivals in Philly. Why? Because that Eagles team features so many of his pals who were University of Georgia teammates.

The backstory: Last March, the Hardman left K.C. and signed with the Jets as a free agent. He was a bust in New York, which eventually dumped him back on the Chiefs. And as fate would have it, Hardman ultimately caught the game-winning pass in overtime for the Chiefs vs. the 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII.

With his new-found celebrity, Hardman now finds himself being invited on podcasts and in this case, blasting the Jets' losing culture.

Said Hardman of his former team: "There's no standard there."

And that comment opened up the floodgates to a possible scandal.

“Be careful getting information from disgruntled former employees,” Jets punter Thomas Morstead responded on Twitter. “Getting beat out by a rookie free agent after being guaranteed millions of dollars is tough to deal with. Entitlement is a killer of opportunity. You have to earn it every year.”

And more ... 

Wrote Sauce in a since-deleted post on Twitter: "We ain’t gon talk about how our offensive gameplan got leaked vs. the Eagles tho”

Wrote Yeboah: “(Hardman) ain’t talk about his own work ethic and how the Georgia eagles got our game plan.''

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This is an NFL "wow'' moment. Even though Hardman's alleged plan to sabotage his own team didn't work (the New York topped Philly that day in a 20-14 upset), and even though Hardman has nothing to do with the Jets anymore (he was traded three days later) ... the NFL now lives in a world in which fans really believe refs are on the take, games are fixed, and Taylor Swift somehow controls it all.

At the risk of making too much of one knucklehead hero, the NFL is obliged to investigate.