New York Daily News reporter Manish Mehta has made a nice career for himself in part by delivering controversial takes, but he should know as well as anyone that nothing that happens on the internet can ever truly be erased.
Mehta got into a bit of a back and forth on Twitter this week after the account for a Jets fan site accused him of flip-flopping with his opinions just so he can later claim he “called it.” The exchange happened in the context of discussing coaching hires, and Mehta emphatically stated that he has never called for any Jets coach to lose his job.
Never have called for any Jets coach to be fired. Literally never. No coach. Ever.
— Manish Mehta (@MMehtaNYDN) January 10, 2020
For a reporter who has been covering a lousy team for so long, that seemed hard to believe. Of course, the internet quickly got to work and began digging through all of Mehta’s old tweets. It wasn’t long before a tweet he sent calling for Rex Ryan to be fired was uncovered.
https://t.co/MxxJ12XHTH pic.twitter.com/bCT5keyZNr
— Stephen A. Austin (@TeamThirstTrap) January 10, 2020
Mehta may have meant that he has never called for a coach to be fired due to poor results. That tweet he sent about Ryan came in August 2013, and he wasn’t the only one who came down hard on the former coach. Ryan was bombarded with questions from the media after he played Mark Sanchez in the fourth quarter of a preseason game in which rookie Geno Smith had struggled. Sanchez ended up injuring his shoulder and missed several games to start the season, and he was reportedly furious with the team over the situation.
So, perhaps Ryan deserved to have Mehta call for his job. That doesn’t make what Mehta said on Thursday any less of a lie, however. Between that and being accused of running an Adam Gase burner Twitter account, Manish has been all over the social media headlines lately.
