By Tom Rock
I’m sure many of you heard Jonathan Vilma’s sometimes contentious exchange with his buddies on WFAN this morning, but not all of you may know that he held a conference call with us beat reporters shortly before that. The main points of that conversation will be in Wednesday’s newspaper, but I thought I’d share a few notes and quotes that didn’t make it into traditional print.
Vilma was asked why it seems that he is not producing in the 3-4 as much as he was in his first two years when the centerpiece of a 4-3.
“I think what you’re seeing from the first two years and this past year and a half are the styles of defenses,” he said. “You have one style where the defense calls for me to run around and make tackles. In the 3-4 you’re asking for a different style where I’m not running around as much sideline to sideline. Instead I’m taking on linemen, taking on guards more. You can’t say it’s the same style and you’re seeing a different player. You’re seeing the same player, just in a different defense. It’s hard to relay that to the fans, it’s hard to relay that to the media, that the 187 NFL-leading tackles, that’s not gonna happen in the 3-4 no matter how well you play. But at the same time you see a defense that gets better and a player who gets better in it, that’s what you should be looking for.”
Asked directly if he likes playing in the 3-4, Vilma shed the question like a poor block and ducked behind his IR status a bit. “I’m happy playing whatever. I’d get out there and play a 5-2 if I could right now.”
Of course the topic of his future with the Jets came up. Vilma was asked to comment on speculation that he will not be with the team next year. “The speculation is exactly that, speculation. For myself and the organization, we haven’t even gotten to that point. Right now we’re worried about me getting better and getting ready for next year and being able to practice and play with the team again. At that point, whatever happens from there as far as contract issues and all that, that’s still beyond my control because I’m just a player playing ball. That’s my agent and Mike Tannenbaum, they deal with that. If I’m here I’m here. I’m gonna play 110 percent. If not, so be it. We part ways and we keep moving forward.”
It still seemed as if Vilma thinks – or at least thought very strongly in the very recent past – that he would be able to play through this injury. He keeps talking about not knowing any player who would want to pack it in without being carted off the field. And you’ll notice that he wasn’t carted off any field. In fact, he continued to play with his injury even though he thinks it occurred early in the Bengals game.
He was asked if he was put on IR because of a season-ending injury or if he’s there because he has a less-significant injury and he and the team do not want it to be damaged further into a possible career-threatening situation.
“Anytime you have an injury, regardless if its me or any other player, you always have to weigh the pros and cons where if you keep playing what are the long-term effects, how can it hurt you not only for the rest of this season but for upcoming years to come. So, the injury, it is what it is. It was the best decision for everybody to have me not play the rest of the season.”
Finally, Vilma listed a few reasons he might opt to avoid surgery. Apparently those crazy strains of staph are weighing on his mind.
“In this case it could be an option just for the fact that you can always run into complications when you have surgery, whether it’s infection, whether it doesn’t heal correctly. There’s just a lot of variables when you have surgery. Sometimes not having surgery can be an option and it can be the best option. It’s just a matter of weighing all the pros and cons of both.”
And with that, he hung up on us and called into WFAN.