Joe Benigno-Robert Saleh calamity is an all-time New York sports media mess
It SOUNDS like something out of a terrible football movie.
A diehard radio caller known as “Joe from Saddle River,” who’s been a Jets fan for more than half-century, becomes a talk show host.
At the height of his radio prowess, he would roar classic rants on Sunday overnights after his team’s annual epic dysfunction. It would be a main engine to launch his career into more desirable time slots, even the coveted afternoons by the end.
After he retires from full-time work on the radio station, the new coach of his Jets is a nice guy, who even plays golf with “Joe from Saddle River” and allows him to rant over text exchanges.
The Jets have a hotshot, highly drafted “next Joe Namath” who — shocker! — doesn’t amount to much. The first-round pick, Zach Wilson, has been benched after Joe Benigno, the media and fans have basically described him as the worst quarterback of all time. What happens next is the quarterbacks after Wilson are somehow worse. “Joe from Saddle River” texts Saleh to return Wilson to the lineup. Saleh responded, “You can’t be serious.”
Then “Joe from Saddle River” misinterprets what the coach meant.
“I can tell you right now, he don’t like Zach,” Benigno would say on WFAN Monday with his old partner Evan Roberts and Tiki Barber.
Benigno would go on to explain he texted Saleh a six-part thesis — six parts! — on how to improve the Jets. At No. 3 on Benigno’s master plan was returning to Wilson at quarterback.
“He texted me back — and he might get mad at me for this, but I don’t care,” Benigno, 70, said on the air Monday. “He texted me back and said, ‘Joe, about No. 3’ — which was playing Wilson — ‘Are you kidding me?’ It might have been, ‘Are you serious?’ ”
Benigno interpreted it as Saleh saying that Wilson can’t return as the starter. Saleh meant that Benigno had called for his benching and now wants him back in. “Are you serious?”
The whole episode goes into the ridiculous annals of New York sports-media history.
The first blame must go to Saleh. He is universally known as a nice guy, which is, of course, a great quality.
The fact that he wants to reach out to the team’s fans in the name of Benigno is on the surface very commendable. But giving Benigno the same level of trust as a reporter was a mistake.
What Saleh failed to realize, and perhaps this is from not being in the New York market previously, is that reporters and some talk-show hosts work by different rules. It is very normal for reporters to text with GMs, coaches and players. But if it is free flowing then generally the relationship is one that means the initial correspondences are off the record.
Benigno actually knew he shouldn’t say it on the air.
In his initial comments with “Evan & Tiki,” Benigno said: “He might get mad at me for this, but I don’t care.”
Saleh is the first Jets coach to ever text and be golf buddies with Benigno. Is this any way to treat the coach?
Benigno feels badLy about it and he should. He went on FAN on Tuesday morning with “Boomer & Gio” to try to do damage control. When reached by The Post, Benigno said he was wrong.
“It’s something I shouldn’t have done,” Benigno said by phone. “It was a bad job by me. I’ve been fortunate enough to have this relationship with the coach. I misinterpreted what he said that he didn’t like Zach, when that clearly wasn’t the case. I’ve been on, ‘We’ve got to bench this guy,’ for a long time. Then he finally does it and I turn around and basically say, ‘We got to get him back in after watching [Tim] Boyle and [Trevor] Siemian play.’ So, I totally misunderstood what he said. That’s a bad job by me. It’s something I shouldn’t have done.”
You can just imagine a Benigno overnight rant in his prime if it were another talk show host involved in this mess. Benigno burned Saleh.
“He’s an extremely nice guy,” Benigno said. “And it is something I think that hurts him as a coach, to be very honest. He’s a tremendous guy. You can’t be a nicer guy than Saleh.”
At the end of the interview with The Post, Benigno was asked if there were anything to add that wasn’t covered.
“Let me say this, and you should know this, I’ve been a Jets fan since 1965,” Benigno said. “I just want to win. I’m tired of the losing. I’m tired of the dysfunction.”
