This isn’t exactly the way John Morton planned, wanted or hoped to be the backdrop to his big return to New Orleans.
Not coming off his offense’s worst performance of the season, gaining a total of 100 yards in a 23-0 loss in Denver.
Not having just lost his dependable rock of a starting quarterback, Josh McCown, for the season to a broken left hand.
Not giving Bryce Petty his first start of the season at quarterback and only the fifth of his career.
And certainly not with a 5-8 record and on the outside of the playoff race looking in — as 16-point underdogs.
After spending 2015 and 2016 with the Saints as their receivers coach, Morton got his first big shot as a coordinator this past offseason when Jets coach Todd Bowles — on Saints coach Sean Payton’s recommendation — took a chance on a 48-year-old journeyman making his seventh coaching stop.
“We talked a lot about him,’’ Bowles said Thursday. “Sean and I were together before, as well as Aaron Glenn (the Saints defensive backs coach) and Dan Campbell (Saints tight ends coach), so I talked to all three of those guys in depth about him [for] a long time, and I trust those guys very much. They were all the same — great coach, great mind, great motivator, great play-caller.’’
Morton has been somewhat of a revelation for the Jets in his first go-round as a coordinator, meshing well with McCown and turning some middle-of-the-road skill position players into weapons at times. It hasn’t been perfect (see Sunday’s offensive debacle in Denver as Exhibit A), but this was a Jets offense that was predicted by so-called experts to be historically anemic.
The Jets are ranked 20th in scoring offense, which is somewhat respectable considering Sunday’s shutout dragged that number down a bit.
Morton goes back to 2006 with Payton, when he was an offensive assistant for the Saints.
“I owe him a lot,’’ Morton said Thursday. “He’s one of the reasons why I am sitting here right now. He was a great influence. I just watch what he does and how he handles things, situations — whether it was the organization or football.’’
Morton said “it will be exciting’’ to face Payton and the Saints, adding, “Obviously, I know all of those guys. But, my main focus is this game — getting these guys ready to play.’’
They’ll need to be a lot more ready than they appeared to be in Denver, where his offense was noncompetitive, recording a total of six first downs and never setting a cleat in the red zone — other than in pre-game warm-ups.
“We just got our butts kicked, that’s all,’’ Morton said. “We got outcoached [and] we got outplayed in everything. That’s a good team. That’s a good [Denver] defense over there, last week. So, you just go on and keep grinding away.’’
This is who Morton is: A grinder. He looks and sounds the part, so you’d expect nothing else out of him.
“I know this: He’s a tremendous worker, very detailed,’’ Payton said this week. “I’d be surprised if he wasn’t sleeping at the facility during the week.’’
Morton, as much as he’d like to be a part of beating his former mentor, insisted, “I treat every week the same.
“Win or lose, you treat it all the same,’’ he went on. “That’s the way that I was taught. That’s the way the message has been with the players.’’
As for the 9-4 Saints, who are in a battle for the NFC South division title and still are led by Hall of Fame-bound quarterback Drew Brees and a running back tandem of Mark Ingram and Alvin Kamara that Bowles called “the best one-two punch in the league right now,’’ Morton knows his offense is likely facing its most daunting task of the season trying to match the expected New Orleans offensive output.
Morton has to worry about the prolific Saints offense as much as the NFL’s 11th-ranked defense his offense will have to deal with. The Saints are ranked No. 3 in the NFL in scoring with 28.5 points per game. The Jets have scored more than 28 points exactly twice this season.
“I’m just worried about us right now,’’ Morton said. “That’s it.’’
