Reporters wandering outside for this afternoon’s practice saw Jets owner Woody Johnson on the field, moving from drill-to-drill, and taking a long look at his quarterbacks warming up on the lower field. Johnson spent some time talking to people on the sideline – including reporters – and strolled over to Chris Baker, who sounded off this morning about his contract situation. The two shook hands, appeared to have an amicable chat – albeit brief - and Johnson moved along.
About that afternoon practice:
1. As I mentioned in the earlier post about the morning practice when the Jets worked mostly on their first and second-down packages, in the afternoon, the Jets worked on third downs and, today anyway, that meant a lot of Pennington and Clemens throwing plenty of slants and underneath stuff. Pennington had the better day of the two quarterbacks and had a couple of “big” plays – completing a 15-yard sideline route to Baker, who made a nice one-handed catch, and also a 20-yarder over the middle to Franks. Back to the Baker catch: say what you will about his contract situation and, though he seemed uninterested at times today, he made several difficult catches.
2. Looking for a star of the day? It might have been sixth-round draft pick Marcus Henry, who had two long receptions on the day, one of which I described in the above post from the morning practice. This afternoon, Henry grabbed a 30-yarder from Clemens along the sideline as Dwight Lowery provided pretty decent coverage. But the 5-11 Lowery was simply out-sized by the 6-4 Henry. Lowery, for his part, has shown some decent ball skills. Speaking of the secondary, Justin Miller, who worked pretty much exclusively with the first team this morning as the No. 2 corner, split those duties this afternoon with David Barrett, leading me to believe Miller isn’t quite ready to go through the rigors of two-a-days. That’s not a bad thing necessarily as the real two-a-days are still more than a month away and Miller was relegated to the excercise bikes the first OTA we saw him in early last month.
3. Two other standouts on offense were Jesse Chatman and Musa Smith, who was just signed last week. Chatman showed excellent speed after catching several screen passes and Smith ended the afternoon practice by taking a screen pass from Clemens and running 60 yards untouched for a touchdown. While the drills are non-contact, it was still impressive watching the 6-0, 232-pound Smith avoid several tacklers on the sideline, cut back to the middle, and dodge a few more on his way to the end zone.
4. Tough day overall for Dustin Keller, who dropped a couple of passes in the morning and another one in the afternoon. He also had a brief conference with Clemens after pulling up short on a route he clearly was supposed to keep running on and had to run a penalty lap for a false start. These things happen with rookies.
5. The primary targets on the slants and screens today were, in no particular order, Laveranes Coles, Chansi Stuckey, Leon Washington and Thomas Jones. Chris Davis saw a few more balls thrown his way than we had previously seen in the OTAs. Jones and Washington saw most of the first-team carries.
And with that, time to work on tomorrow’s newspaper story. I’ll go through some of the questions from earlier and answer them - or try to - in the comments section where you posted them later tonight. Unless I already answered in one of these posts.
Comments (14)
Ok, the title talks about Woodhead, but not one mention of him in the article. The reason I point this out EB, is I'm hoping this kid can make the team and play special teams and relieve Miller of this duty to spare him for the defense. How'd he do in the morning? Did he do anything in the afternoon? Good to hear the O-line is shaping up. Thanks.
Boland was making a joke, literal man.
Not to mention that Woodhead has about a snowball's chance in hell of making this roster now. I see him as more of a practice squad guy. If he even had a slim chance before, that went out the window with the signing of Musa Smith.
Boland, my man, I knew Marcus Henry was a good pick once I saw his measurements, numbers and highlight videos. Obviously it's early, but he's showing exactly what we need - a tall, sure-handed receiver that can simply catch the ball over average and below-average size corners. I know you didn't forget about me Erik, how did Bryan Thomas look?
From Mangini's press conference it sounds like Woodhead is actually doing quite well in drills. I wouldn't count him out just yet....
Mike in Va., Mike in ny is right, word play on my part. Part of my sense of humor, which very few find funny. But since you asked about Woodhead and Mangini did talk about him today, as unklB pointed out...
Woodhead, since having those three muffs on kick returns (two on punts) three weeks ago, has been flawless the last two practices. In the two tackling drills (non-tackling, of course) we saw today, in the open field defenders had no chance to grab him, though one of them was the 360-pound Kris Jenkins. That was an amusing sight, if nothing else. One thing about Woodhead that Mangini has to have noticed -- Woodhead takes no plays off and once contact drills start, I have a feeling he'll be the kind of player that will fly everywhere. Woodhead's still a longshot, but not a no-shot and Rich R. is right, the practice squad certainly is a possibility if nothing else.
Bryan, I would never neglect one of your questions. BT is showing a quick burst from the outside and he overall looks in tremendous shape. I know a lot of Jets fans were PO'd about his comments last week about "slacking" off in practice at times last year, but he looks as motivated as he ever has been in his career.
I know you wouldn't, Erik, I know you wouldn't. To be honest, I was the complete opposite of PO'd when I read Thomas' comments. He was brutally honest, completely accountable, and sincerely sorry for "slacking off" last year. I loved hearing him give himself that rough assessment because it shows that he knows what he was last year and what he potentially could be. I highly doubt Thomas is the only player that the coaching staff or the player himself feels "slacked off" last year. His comments were, honestly, refreshing for me as a fan.
I'm not pissed off at all...who didn't slack off last year? The O-Line did, the D-Line did...the ones that stood out as giving their all were Rhodes, Coles, Harris, Cotchery, Revis and they've all been rewarded. People seem to forget that Shaun Ellis is getting paid pretty well and isn't really producing tremendous numbers...my guess is that he would've had a similar quote about last year.
Erik, about your sense of humor, I didn't know you had one. Unless you were making the joke that these guys have sexually explicit names in which case I'd be absolutely appalled at your lewd behavior.
Finally, my question; is Elam back and does he look as good as he did ending the year? Do you see a time split between Elam and Smith? Maybe a 3 safety set here and there?
Cliff, your response reminds me of the exchange from Mrs. Doubtfire (don't judge me) when the Robin Williams character Mr. Hillard is doing a bunch of voices to the social worker, Mrs. Sellner, who sits there stonefaced.
She says to him, "Mr. Hillard, do you consider yourself humorous?"
Mr Hillard: "I used to."
Sooooo, Elam, since returning from Florida and tending to his family situation, has been playing with the second team. Elam looks good - he's had a couple pass breakups in the practices we've seen - but Smith has been impressive in a safety tandem with Rhodes on the first team. Mangini really talked up Smith Thursday during his press conference but he also had good things to say about Elam, though it was more about Elam overcoming some of his personal situations. The occasional three-safety set is an interesting proposition. We haven't seen it yet but it's worth asking about.
To be honest, I think even Robin Williams tries to forget Mrs. Doubtfire.
And as I've noticed throughout this blog you've really mentioned Mangini's secondary specialties and I'm glad that he's so good at it...but it really makes me wonder if its truly a secondary thing or is it only safeties; Rhodes, Coleman, Smith, Elam, (now Lowrey)...besides Revis, Mangini's really only produced/picked solid safeties. It'd be nice to see our pass rush work well enough to use a 3 Safety set, maybe a 3 safety, 2 corner, 3 dl and 3 lb line wouldn't be too farfetched. Heck, if the pass rush can be what we think its going to be, that might very well give our defensive coordinators a solid set of schemes that they can mix and match coverages with,
Just a rant, but thanks for the quick response Boland, I like my closure before bed.
Why doesn't anyone ask Baker directly about the advance, on his '08 salary, he received last seaso? It appears the press is much more interested in printing stories on players calling management liars than they are in Any insider info on whether Mr. T continues to make the same "play well & we'll see about the contract later" promis to players or is this just a popular tactic for players based on the team's reluctance to speak ill of a player.
BTW Erik, I really appreciate how up to date and involved you are with the blog.
Jumbo Jet
Jumbo Jet, thanks, though it's a simple thing from my end: if people can take the time to ask questions, I can take the time to respond. As for the "advance" Baker received, he was asked about that yesterday and he said, "They forwarded me a roster bonus I was due in March and they forwarded me some money from this year's salary. Now they are trying to say, 'We redid his contract last year. The Jets actually have not made that specific contention to my knowledge. As for the Tannenbaum thing, I'll do more on that in the future but a GM who outright makes those kinds of ironclad promises and then reneged on them would find it tough doing business in the league long term. My guess is that in the past there’s been a certain ambiguity to what has been said in those meetings so that the agent and Tannenbaum believe two different things have been said.
Eric, when we signed Pace, I think alot of people thought he was going to be a speed rusher on the outside but I don't really think he is. How has he looked and what do you think ?
David, Pace better be that speed rusher because that's exactly what the Jets are paying him a lot of $ to be. In their 3-4 this year, barring injuries or other unforseen events, one outside linebacker will be Pace for sure and on the other side will either be Bryan Thomas or Vernon Gholston. I like the first step I've seen from Pace to this point and physically he's impressive, though the nature of non-contact drills makes things like strength difficult to project.