Jets football blog

Jets break camp

The Jets players, coaches and support staff convened for a 7 a.m. breakfast yesterday at SUNY Cortland before breaking training camp and driving home to prepare for their second preseason game, Monday night in Baltimore.

This ended their three-week stay in the rural upstate New York college town.

Rex Ryan, who surprised the players by canceling yesterday's practice and allowing everyone to go home early, seemingly has gotten the desired results by taking his players more than three hours from home so they could bond and grow together as a team as they prepared for the season. Continue

Sanchez slips Kellen improves in 11-11 drills

One day after taking a significant step forward in the quarterback competition, Mark Sanchez took a mini step back yesterday, completing only one of six passes in 11-on-11 drills and missing a couple of open receivers in the end zone.

Kellen Clemens, meanwhile, looked better than he did Saturday, completing 10 of 16 passes in 11-on-11s.

"He had a few passes that sailed on him that might have been touchdowns," coach Rex Ryan said of Sanchez.

"He made some great throws and some that you were, like, 'Gosh, where are those coming from?' " Continue

Jets get physical at practice

And on the fourth day, there was anger.

The Jets' sixth full training-camp practice in four days, for a frantic few minutes yesterday morning at SUNY Cortland, morphed into a full-on WWE exhibition.

Three spirited skirmishes broke out during a physical 9-on-7 drill, and it left players buzzing afterward.

"This was our first real practice," Jets linebacker Bart Scott crowed.

"I like it," defensive end Marques Douglas said. "That's football. It's not a place for women and children. Guys are really eager to hit someone else at this point. It's always exciting when you have some heated battles out there. It makes the day go by a whole lot faster. Continue

Jenkins strains calf

Pro Bowl NT Kris Jenkins, arguably the Jets' most irreplaceable defensive player, left practice Saturday with a strained calf muscle.

"I just felt, 'Pop, pop, pop,'" Jenkins said afterward.

That doesn't sound good, but Jenkins insisted that "it's nothing serious." He estimated that he could miss anywhere from two to six days, but he doesn't see it as a long-term injury. Neither does coach Rex Ryan, who expects Jenkins to be sidelined only a few days.

"Hopefully, it's not that big a deal," Ryan said.

Jenkins didn't have a wrap on his calf, but he was walking with a severe limp. Noting that his 30th birthday is tomorrow, Jenkins made some old-man jokes at his own expense. (Daily News)

Leon not optimistic

Leon Washington is in training camp with his teammates, having reported late Thursday night and practiced yesterday.

He's happy about that.

He, however, is extremely unhappy that he's still without a new contract and sounded almost resigned to the fact he won't get a new deal any time soon.

"I'm unhappy about the situation, but at same time I have to play football," Washington said after the afternoon practice. "I thought we made some progress [in recent days' negotiations], but obviously there's still a gap there, because we don't have a contract signed yet. Continue

RB Jones returns to practice

Thomas Jones is back. Leon Washington isn't.

As expected, the disgruntled Jones ended his offseason boycott, rejoining the Jets Wednesday  for practice in Florham Park. The Pro Bowl running back had been skipping voluntary team activities, hoping to land a new contract. The Jets haven't renegotiated his contract, which runs through 2010, but his agent indicated last week that Jones was planning to show up.

Practice was closed to the media. Today's practice is open, and Jones is expected to address his contract situation. Continue

'Learning' curve

Vernon Gholston has been toiling a bit in his first NFL training camp, but his fortune is the fact that his No. 1 pick presence has been overshadowed by the much larger aura of Brett Favre. The fact is, if Favre were not here, Gholston, because of where he was drafted (sixth overall), would be drawing a lot more attention than he has to date and, based on his early struggles, that's probably not a good thing for him. That's attention he'd probably rather not have. Continue

Arm-weary Favre feeling his age at Jets workouts

Brett Favre said yesterday he felt "like a 38-year-old" for the first time since joining the Jets on the practice field.

Citing fatigue in his arm, Favre asked Eric Mangini to limit the number of throws he was to make in the afternoon practice and the Jets coach acquiesced. In the afternoon session, which lasted 2 hours, 18 minutes - the longest workout of camp - the reps were split about evenly between Favre, Kellen Clemens, Brett Ratliff and Erik Ainge. "My arm is dragging a little bit today," Favre said after the morning practice. "It's not really sore, just fatigued." Continue

Chris Baker cools Jets in return to action at training camp

Chris Baker is keeping his end of the bargain. The Jets' formerly disgruntled tight end returned to practice Monday after spending the first 11 days of training camp on the physically-unable-to-perform list, wearing a smile and reciting the team's company line.

Gone were the angry rhetoric accusing the front office of reneging on a promise to renegotiate his contract and predictions he would not be with the Jets for long. Instead, Baker was optimistic about the upcoming season. Continue

Hot-blooded

NFL players are generally not pining for training camp to begin once late July arrives. Knowing two-a-day practices in 90-degree heat await is not an attractive thought to players, who would rather proceed directly from mini-camp to the regular season.

Kris Jenkins, who turned 30 yesterday, is an exception. Jenkins, possibly the Jets ' most significant offseason acquisition, picked up in a trade with the Panthers, couldn't wait for training camp to begin because that meant he could start hitting again. Continue