{"id":875921,"date":"2026-10-09T04:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T04:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/875921\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T04:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T04:38:08","slug":"brandon-staley-pushes-back-against-troy-aikmans-criticism-its-not-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/875921\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Staley pushes back against Troy Aikman&#8217;s criticism: It&#8217;s not true"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Saints defensive coordinator Brandon Staley pushed back at comments ESPN analyst Troy Aikman made during the Monday Night Football broadcast.<\/p>\n<p>With 2:43 remaining in the third quarter of the Saints\u2019 45-24 loss, Aikman said Staley didn\u2019t have answers for the Falcons. Atlanta gained 420 yards, including 205 rushing yards, and the Falcons scored five rushing touchdowns. <\/p>\n<p>The Saints played without linebacker Kaden Elliss and edge rushers Carl Granderson and Andernee Jennings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrandon Staley, he just simply doesn\u2019t have any answers, and I think he knew it when we talked to him coming in,\u201d Aikman said Monday night. \u201cI think he knew. He didn\u2019t tell us, but the guys that are out \u2014 their big edge rushers and guys who can play the run and set the edge \u2014 they\u2019re not on the field, and they just don\u2019t have that star defender that can erase mistakes for other people.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was a matchup issue coming into this game, and it\u2019s proven true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Staley heard the comments and said he has \u201cno idea\u201d what Aikman was talking about.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was a tough night for us, and certainly, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/50135736\/staley-perplexed-aikman-saints-d\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">I\u2019m responsible<\/a>. I\u2019m calling the defense, but we\u2019ve got a great group of guys,\u201d Staley said, via Katherine Terrell of ESPN. \u201cNo one defended that runner [Bijan Robinson] last year better than us. He\u2019s a hell of a player. But our group defended him twice last year better than anyone through his time in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re focusing on Minnesota, learning the tough lessons from the other night. We\u2019ve got the right guys to bounce back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Staley admitted the comments bothered him \u201cbecause they\u2019re not true.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also defended his players\u2019 effort after Aikman commented that some of the Saints were \u201cstanding around watching the play, missed tackles, just bad football\u201d on the fifth rushing touchdown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur guys have played the right way,\u201d Staley said. \u201cAnd mainly that\u2019s assignment, technique, effort, all in one. I think the other night, we were missing two out of the three. Our effort was there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saints defensive coordinator Brandon Staley pushed back at comments ESPN analyst Troy Aikman made during the Monday Night&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":875922,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-875921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=875921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/875921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/875922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=875921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=875921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=875921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}