E-Boland & Gang Green

By Tom Rock

Unofficially it’s the last day of summer. Officially it’s the last day of no traffic on my way to the Jets complex. By the time I’m back on the road to get here on Wednesday morning, the LIE will be packed will all those teachers, school buses and everyone else who has been kind enough to take vacation the last few weeks and save room for those of us working slobs on the highways.

As for this being Labor Day, the Jets were hard at work. Even Thomas Jones, who stretched and did some drills with the team and then spent some time off to the side with RB coach Jimmy Raye going over footwork and taking outside pitches to get his skills together. He was running outside of upside down garbage pails, which as those of you insiders know is called the Fostner Drill. Sorry, inside joke.

This is the first day Jones has worn his full uniform since the injury, so that’s a step in the right direction. And he looked pretty spry. It’s hard for me to believe he won’t play on Sunday. At 100 percent? Well, close.

The Jets named their captains today, and as I semi-predicted early in training camp, Laveranues Coles was among them. He and Pennington are the offensive captains, Shaun Ellis and Jonathan Vilma did such a bang-up job last year that they were re-elected as defensive captains, and Mike Nugent and Brad Kassell were selected special teams captains. I asked Kassell if he had ever been a captain before. “No. Well, I don’t know. In college maybe? I don’t remember.” Obviously it meant a lot.

The Jets also left room on their practice squad for at least one player. This way, if they make a move this week to bring in a guard through a trade or off the waiver wire (which is not a very appetizing menu), they can just drop one of the guys from the 53 down. Mike DeVito, the only undrafted rookie to make the team, could be a candidate for that designation. The other practice squad guys signed were Manny Collins, Chris Davis, Brett Ratliff, Jason Trusnik, Robert Turner, Ray Ventrone and Danny Ware.

I’ll be enjoying my ride home in a little while, scooting out to Suffolk County, waving at all the Hamptons traffic on the other side of the divider. And when I say divider, I mean it both in the tangible and metaphoric sense.