By Tom Rock
The Jets will go Chad-less today, and perhaps beyond.
Eric Mangini announced at his midday press conference that Chad Pennington will not practice this afternoon while he attends to a family illness. Mangini said he has no timetable for Pennington’s return, and he could miss the preseason game in Washington on Saturday night.
Mangini said he was impressed by yesterday’s practice in that both DBs and WRs seemed to be very focused on their central role, which is catching footballs. Indeed, Justin McCareins made a nice grab on a deep ball from Pennington and Tim Dwight snagged a sweet pass over the middle, splitting two defenders for a completion from Patrick Ramsey. Reggie Newhouse also hauled in a terrific grab, one-handed on a pass thrown behind him.
Mangini had one of his most engaging press meetings today. He wasn’t spilling the playbook (or even the depth chart), but he seems to be getting more and more comfortable with the daily briefings. He spoke about some personal things besides football today, such as his pregame routine of talking with his kids and his thoughts on being “the young guy.” He even cracked a few jokes on his way out of the room. He’s no Johnny Carson, but then again, neither is Jay Leno.
The tunes at Wednesday’s practice seemed to be taken down a bit, lyrically anyway. Both Andrew Gross of the Journal News and I blogged about the suggestive songs that had been coming out of the speakers lined up next to the practice field – and in close range to the kiddie park set up in an adjacent parking lot. The raunch was cut out and the songs were more of a PG-13 variety. Before inflating myself by suggesting that the power of the pen (or the keyboard or the blog or whatever it is I do here) was responsible for a positive change in society (I’m getting choked up and can faintly here the Battle Hymn of the Republic beginning to swell in my mind), I doubt I had anything to do with it. More likely, others with more pull in Jets camp (i.e. Woody Johnson, who was on the field Tuesday) put the kibosh on the strip-club songs.
Speaking of strip clubs. No, um, speaking of Andrew Gross, check out his blog at http://jets.lohudblogs.com/. He’s been getting a little lonely over there with very few comments. Even though he is sitting just three seats away from me right now, tell him I said HI!.
Any fishing questions or reports of big catches can be sent to mcasey@newsday.com. Keep those lines tight!