Craig Carton refutes WFAN host’s bombshell Jets report: ‘Scandal based on lies’

After WFAN host Shaun Morash reported several items that made the New York Jets seem like more of a bumbling circus than they already are, Craig Carton claimed there’s no truth to any of it.

We haven’t even reached the Super Bowl yet and the Jets are already having a strange offseason. The Jets look to be in total tank mode, head coach Aaron Glenn is already on the hot seat after just one season, and he’s struggling to fill out his coaching staff. And reports coming out of the Jets building have now led to a source-off between two people who aren’t even beat reporters or insiders, they’re WFAN hosts.

Tuesday morning on WFAN’s midday show, Shaun Morash reported Jets owner Woody Johnson is meddling again and has stripped Glenn of all control. According to Morash, Glenn was nearing a deal with Wink Martindale to be his next defensive coordinator when Johnson decided his head coach has to call the plays.

Morash reports that Woody Johnson stepped in and squashed the Wink Martindale agreement:@ShaunMorash pic.twitter.com/G0JwHluICY

— WFAN Sports Radio (@WFAN660) February 3, 2026

“He flew down to Florida to meet with Woody Johnson to get him to sign on the dotted line on how much he needed to pay Wink Martindale. Woody Johnson looked Aaron Glenn dead in the eyes and said, ‘I’m paying you $12 million, you’re coaching the defense. We’re not hiring a defensive coordinator when that is your background,’” Morash told Evan Roberts and Tiki Barber.

“Aaron Glenn had to turn around and fly back up to tell Wink Martindale, ‘You know, sorry, Wink, it’s not happening, I gotta call the defense, and it’s Woody Johnson’s fault.’ So, it was not an Aaron Glenn – Wink Martindale rift. Woody Johnson would not allow Aaron Glenn to hire Wink Martindale to call the plays.”

Tuesday afternoon, Craig Carton went on his own WFAN radio show and told co-host Chris McMonigle that everything Morash said a few hours earlier was false.

“Because of an erroneous report on this radio station, all of a sudden the New York Jets are in the firing squad again,” Carton said. “I want to be fair to Shaun Morash, I believe that Shaun Morash got a phone call, or somebody told him what he reported today. This is not a shot at a colleague. I believe he got information, and he went with the information he got, although an unvetted source, perhaps. And didn’t talk to the Jets, perhaps…but there’s some fundamental problems with the story out today that again, are trying to make my Jets…look like a more incompetent, more laughable clown show.”

“Woody Johnson has been 100 percent hands off this offseason,” Carton insisted. “He has not meddled in what Aaron Glenn wants to do with his coaching staff. He has not met face to face with Aaron Glenn and told him, ‘I don’t care who you want to hire you’re not allowed to hire that guy cause I’m paying you too much money already.’ So, the first factual mistake is that Woody Johnson has meddled in Aaron Glenn’s decisions with his coaching staff this offseason.”

In addition to claiming Johnson has been meddling with the coaching staff this offseason, Morash also reported general manager Darren Mougey has told enough people the Jets are a bad team to work for that it became a talking point amongst NFL people at the Senior Bowl.

Morash reported that Woody Johnson is back to meddling, and Darren Mougey is letting others know about it 😬 pic.twitter.com/FWuCDcUcaa

— WFAN Sports Radio (@WFAN660) February 3, 2026

“Mougey is warning people, ‘this is not the place you want to work and Woody Johnson is not the boss you want to have,’” Morash said.

Much like he refuted the idea Johnson has meddled this offseason, Carton similarly refuted Morash’s report that the Jets second-year general manager has been going around bad-mouthing the owner and his franchise.

“Take all opinions of the Jets out of this. Does that make any common sense to you?” Carton asked. “That a second-year general manager is gonna go to a variety of people in the NFL and tell them ow much he hates his job and how the owner’s a clown?

“We don’t need to invent things that didn’t take place to make the Jets look worse… If we’re gonna put them on blast, let’s do it with some accuracy and some facts,” Carton said before referring to Morash’s report as a “scandal based on lies.”

None of it makes sense. A young general manager, who seemingly has enough job security to stockpile first round draft picks during his rookie season, bad-mouthing the owner and his organization seems like a terrible way of attempting to build a career as an NFL executive.

What’s going on with the Jets coaching staff also doesn’t make sense. And it’s very hard to believe Woody Johnson has just sat on the sideline through all of it, especially after reports stated they reached out to Jon Gruden about the offensive coordinator position. That smells like a Woody phone call. Why would a second-year head coach on the hot seat want to bring in an offensive coordinator who the fanbase will be begging to see take his job from day one? Similarly, why would Glenn go down the path of trying to hire Wink Martindale, only to decide he wants to be the defensive play caller in his second season as head coach?

Did Woody Johnson meddle with Jon Gruden and Wink Martindale? We don’t know. But we know Woody Johnson meddles. And we saw prominent examples of it as recently as two seasons ago. This is an owner who reportedly wanted to bench Aaron Rodgers for Tyrod Taylor when the Jets were just 2-2 during the 2024 season. This is also an owner who fired Robert Saleh just five games into their first real look at the Aaron Rodgers’ experiment in New York. He has a history of meddling. It’s why Jets fans were hoping he would land another position in the Trump administration just to get him out of the building for a few years. And it’s why everyone will have a very hard time believing this is the year Johnson just decided to give up meddling.