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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
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 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
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
Chad Pennington's Green team won the day. But how far the veteran went toward securing the starting quarterback job could not be determined because both Pennington and Kellen Clemens had their moments.
In the Jets' annual Green and White Practice yesterday at Hofstra's Shuart Stadium, the Green team prevailed, 10-7, over Clemens' White team. Pennington did what he's done most of training camp, delivering several strong throws and not making any critical mistakes. He finished 8-for-14 for 115 yards and one touchdown, hitting Jerricho Cotchery with a beautifully thrown pass to the left pylon that resulted in a 27-yard TD. Continue
Jet cornerback Darrelle Revis didn't need to get to his first training camp to learn what he didn't do right in his rookie season.
"Going through the season last year and then watching film on it just shows you that I was running out there with my head cut off," Revis said yesterday. "Now I understand the defensive schemes more. I understand what I'm supposed to do at a certain time. I think it's key to know that. Continue
Bubba Franks is headed into his ninth season and knows a few things about succeeding in the NFL. And he likes what he's seen from rookie Dustin Keller. "The kid is showing some sparks," Franks said of the 30th overall pick. "It's pretty impressive to see him out there running his routes. He's fast. It's gonna be very interesting to see him play during the season." Yesterday was a good example of why the Jets are poised to get more production out of the tight-end position than in years past. Continue
Vernon Gholston is being realistic, even if his goals for the time being probably won't excite Jets fans. "I always have high expectations for myself," Gholston said. "Maybe it comes a little slower than others expect, but one day I hope to be a good player."
So, he doesn't consider himself one already? "Definitely not," said Gholston after practice yesterday at Hofstra. The former Ohio State defensive lineman isn't being modest, just accepting the realities of making the transition to the NFL and to a new position. When told Eric Mangini had said it looked as if Gholston was "swimming" during training camp, the linebacker-in-training responded, "Swimming? Closer to drowning." Continue
Even Jets coach Eric Mangini appears to be tired of trying to figure out who his starting quarterback is going to be. A day after Chad Pennington called on the Jets brass to make a decision regarding the situation, Mangini surprised his team by canceling both sessions of yesterday's scheduled practice, giving it the day off. Continue
On the first day of Jets training camp - the first of many two-a-day practices and the first 11-on-11 team drill while in the midst of a competition for the Jets starting quarterback job - Kellen Clemens threw an interception right into the hands of linebacker Eric Barton. "Not the way you want to get started," Clemens said after yesterday's opening practice at Weeb Ewbank Hall. Continue
There will be questions about the free agents fitting in, the rookies doing the same, the ebb and flow of various position battles and the potential distraction of a tight end unhappy with his contract.But Jets coach Eric Mangini knows the combined queries provoked by those topics will approach the number he gets on a singular topic:Who the heck is going to start at quarterback, Chad Pennington or Kellen Clemens? Continue
They're not calling you a genius anymore, not after 4-12. Your owner still likes you, but he doled out $140 million for new players and, with a new stadium to market, he wants a winner.
Your starting quarterback … wait a second, do you have a starting quarterback on the roster? Your tight end is cranky, and unless he gets a new contract or a trade, he's going to stomp his feet and whine every day to the media. Eric Mangini, your third training camp - the Jets' farewell to Long Island - will be anything but dullsville. Continue
The Bears drafted Cedric Benson out of Texas at No.4 in 2005, the same spot where they picked Hall of Famers Gale Sayers and Walter Payton. There is intense pressure to make it work, which turned out to be good news for the Jets.
The need to get Benson on the field led to Chicago basically giving Thomas Jones to the Jets in March even though he was their best offensive player on the team that went to the Super Bowl last season. Jones was in Benson's way, and with Benson unable to push him aside, the Bears did. "You can't have two featured backs," GM Jerry Angelo said by phone. "He knew that. We knew that. Given the dynamic of our situation, we found an option and exercised it." Continue
Jonathan Vilma stormed off the field, a game face still etched on his countenance, and he flung a half-empty beverage bottle into the fence with disgust. His defense had just allowed a last-second touchdown in one of those fantasy two-minute drills the Jets use to cap most of their workouts, and Vilma was livid.
There were coverages that needed tightening, communications that needed tuning, and situational awareness that needed refining. It took several minutes for the steamed inside linebacker to regain his composure. Remember: This is still only training camp. Continue
When Bobby Hamilton talks about defensive linemen, you listen. The man has played the position for 11 seasons, a forever run in which he has won two Super Bowl rings and has lined up alongside two likely Hall of Famers, Warren Sapp and Richard Seymour. So, with that in mind, pay close attention to Hamilton's assessment of teammate Dewayne Robertson.
"I saw some stuff last year that I never thought a defensive lineman could do," he said recently of the Jets' nose tackle. That's quite a verbal pat on the back. Continue
On a team loaded with talented receivers such as Laveranues Coles, Jerricho Cotchery and even the once-forgotten Justin McCareins, Chris Baker isn't always the first target on Chad Pennington's mind when he drops back to pass.
But Baker, a sixth-year tight end, is developing into a solid safety valve for the Jets, a last-but-not-least option for when the heat gets turned up in the pocket. And because opposing defenses are likely to be keyed in on Coles and Cotchery in the beginning of the season, Baker could become Chad's chief check-down. Continue
The losers ate cold turkey sandwiches and were subjected to reruns of "Sex and the City" on the charter bus ride back to Hofstra. The winners were treated to buckets of ribs and fixin's from a popular BBQ joint, along with undisclosed video entertainment. Use your imagination.
Eric Mangini tried to provide extra motivation for the annual Green and White scrimmage yesterday at Fordham, where the Jets played a preseason tune-up in an empty stadium. But in the end, the biggest winner may have been rookie cornerback Darrelle Revis, who was nowhere to be found. The unsigned first-round pick and the Jets are embroiled in a 10-day-old contract dispute, but Revis' value may have climbed a bit after an apparent hamstring injury to Justin Miller and a poor performance by incumbent starter Andre Dyson, who played with the second-team defense. Continue
Mike Nugent lined up with five seconds left on the clock and got rid of his usual thought process. “From 65 yards, you just want to crush it,” the kicker said of his third field goal attempt in the Jets’ simulated game yesterday at Fordham University. “You never want to think that way, like in golf, but in that situation, you have to go for it.”
His kick came up about five yards short, giving the White team a 24-21 win over the Green team, but that was about the only thing that hasn’t gone Nugent’s way this training camp. Continue
Pete Kendall hurt his back in the Jets' loss to the Chargers in the eighth game of the dismal 2005 season. They had already lost Chad Pennington and Jay Fiedler for the season. They pulled Vinny Testaverde off the couch weeks earlier and he got hurt against the Chargers. So did Wayne Chrebet, who suffered a career-ending concussion.
The season was over at 2-6. The next week the Jets were in Carolina with Brooks Bollinger at quarterback. They would lose, 30-3. Kendall, who had moved over from left guard to play out of position at center with Kevin Mawae injured, took one for the team and played against the Panthers with his bad back. Continue
In his first year and a half as coach of the Jets, Eric Mangini has pointed to Jerry Rice countless times as an example of preparedness. Rice's offseason workouts are legendary, and they helped support a 20-year career in the NFL. On Friday, when Mangini pointed to Rice, Rice pointed back. The abstract was in the flesh.
The future Hall of Fame receiver flew to New York to provide the Jets with a few inspirational nuggets, then kicked back with the team to watch the movie "300" and enjoy a team cookout on a day off from practice. Yesterday, when the Jets returned to the field, Rice's words were still ringing in their ears. Continue
See the talented second-year player make one acrobatic catch after another as a receiver, beating defensive backs with twice the NFL experience he has. See the player excel on special teams, catching punts and weaving his way up the field past the oncoming players on the coverage units, whisking past them virtually untouched.
See him on kick coverage teams, tackling dangerous returners before they can turn it up the field. See him take handoffs as a running back. And to think, he's a quarterback. Brad Smith can do it all. Continue
When the Jets started their free-agent homework on defensive end Kenyon Coleman, GM Mike Tannenbaum phoned Bill Parcells for his opinion. Made sense, considering Parcells coached Coleman for four seasons in Dallas.
The end result was a five-year, $20 million contract, an astonishing amount for a player with only five career starts. The natural assumption was that Tannenbaum received a "Get-this-guy-at-any-cost" recommendation from his mentor and the former Jets coach. But that's not how it went down. Parcells likes Coleman, he really does, but does he consider him a difference-maker? Not exactly. Continue
When the Jets traded up to pick Darrelle Revis in the first round of the draft, they made it clear that improving at cornerback was an offseason priority. Now that Revis is a no-show - yesterday he missed his sixth day and his ninth practice - the Jets are left with almost the exact same corps of defensive backs with which they finished the 2006 season. Will this get to a point where the team needs to start looking elsewhere, through trade or free agency, to bolster the position? Eric Mangini didn't seem to think that's necessary.
"I think the group has gotten better in being more familiar with the system," the coach said, once again touting the progress of Justin Miller, the player who has been getting most of the reps that would have gone to Revis. Revis, the 14th overall pick in April, is looking for a five-year deal and the Jets are offering six, which is, reportedly, the impasse to negotiations. Continue
Kellen Clemens played in two games last year during his rookie season and threw one pass. The Jets undoubtedly would take similar numbers from Clemens this year, because that likely would mean Chad Pennington stayed healthy for a second straight season. But given Pennington's past injury trouble, coupled with the somewhat shaky status of the Jets' offensive line, Clemens' role is important, something he realizes and is willing to accept. Continue
Unsigned first-round pick Darrelle Revis has missed five days of training camp, a total of eight practices. The contract dispute has no end in sight, with the two sides haggling over the length of contract (five years versus six) along with other issues. In the meantime, coach Eric Mangini continues to praise CB Justin Miller, who is receiving more practice reps with Revis not in camp.
"Every repetition that you miss is an opportunity for someone else to get that rep, and for them to show what they can do and how they can help the team win," Mangini said yesterday, perhaps trying to turn up the heat on Revis. "It's really a great opportunity for those other guys." Continue
If Adrien Clarke does wind up as the Jets' new left guard, replacing the disgruntled Pete Kendall, it won't be the first time he'll play next to Nick Mangold.
The two started on the offensive line together at Ohio State when Clarke was a senior and Mangold a sophomore. The Jets can only hope for as much success as the Buckeyes had with the duo on the line. "We did well," Mangold said. "We almost went to the national championship [game]. We went to the Fiesta Bowl." Continue
While Pete Kendall continues to distance himself from the Jets, his apparent replacement at left guard, Adrien Clarke, is trying to fit in. Clarke, picked up as a free agent from the Eagles after he missed all of 2006 because of back surgery, has been sharing first-team reps with Kendall through the first few days of camp.
Getting acclimated on an offensive line that returns four starters can be challenging, but Clarke played with center Nick Mangold at Ohio State and said the players on either side of him, Mangold and left tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, have been helpful. That's quite the reversal of roles because Kendall was credited with ushering Mangold and Ferguson through their rookie seasons last year. Continue
The day after the Jets' playoff loss in New England, Laveranues Coles, his body battered from a grueling season, created headlines by claiming he was "getting pretty close to the end" of his career. It wasn't the kind of comment you'd expect from a 29-year-old wide receiver, coming off one of his best seasons. Was Coles going to pull a Tiki Barber?
Upon reporting to training camp, Coles admitted he contemplated his football mortality, but those thoughts were long gone by the time he began his unusual, off-road training regimen last month near his palatial home in the rural outskirts of Jacksonville. Instead of working out at a posh gym with highly paid instructors, he ran alone through swampy, wooded areas, battling suffocating heat, mud and angry insects. Continue
A year ago, Justin McCareins had a front-row seat in purgatory. During the first couple days of the 2006 training camp, the Jets’ seventh-year receiver was so deep into Eric Mangini’s doghouse there was no light showing a way out.
Considering the kind of ripped shape he always keeps himself in, it was one of the shocking events of the summer when McCareins was placed on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list on the first day of training camp for failing the pre-camp running test. Instead of practicing with his teammates in those first couple of sessions, McCareins was reduced to jogging laps around the field as punishment. All that was missing was the stool and dunce cap in the corner of the room for embarrassment purposes. Continue
Eric Mangini offered high praise yesterday for second-year left tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, the Jets' top draft pick in 2006.
"One guy that's really stood out and had a really good offseason, who did a lot of work on his own, did a lot of good work in the weight room, on his own in terms of a lot of extra things, was D'Brickashaw Ferguson," Mangini said. "I've seen that work here early [in camp]. It looks like that's paid off, and I've been pleased with that. You can see the things that he really focused on playing out here as we put pads on." Former NFL tackle Lomas Brown has been working with Ferguson as a special assistant, and Mangini said that's been a big part of Ferguson's development. Continue
The Jets opened yesterday with a unwelcome daily double: An unsigned rookie and an angry, 11-year veteran who believes he's being treated like a rookie. Guard Pete Kendall, continuing his month-long verbal assault on the organization, blotted Day1 of Eric Mangini's second training camp at Hofstra. Claiming the acrimony has become "comical to the point of being absurd," Kendall - unhappy with his contract - accused the Jets of pettiness by assigning him to the rookie dorm. To him, it was the ultimate indignity.
"I've clearly expressed that I don't want to be here," said Kendall, who got his room changed after complaining to Mangini and GM Mike Tannenbaum. "It's seemingly evolved to be personal." Continue
When the 2007 Jets convene at Weeb Ewbank Hall today for the opening of training camp, with two-a-day practices starting tomorrow, Curtis Martin will be in the team's midtown office delivering his goodbye to the NFL as a player. Martin, the fourth leading rusher in NFL history and a likely Hall of Fame entrant the moment he's eligible, will make his retirement official, as reported by The Post on Tuesday.
Martin sat out the 2006 season when it was discovered he had a bone-on-bone condition in his right knee, which was injured in 2005. He spent some time with the team last year and during minicamp this spring but knew all along his playing days were over. "Fortunately for us he lives (nearby) and he's welcome here any time," Eric Mangini said of Martin in retirement. "We look forward to him still coming around here and helping mentor some of our young players." Continue
A year ago, the Jets were breaking in a new head coach in Eric Mangini. Mangini, meanwhile, was breaking in his new coaching staff and trying to convey to his players what he expected from them. He, too, was conducting a ballyhooed four-way quarterback competition, one from which Chad Pennington would emerge the winner. The Jets also had to get used to not having Curtis Martin carrying the offensive load for them, which Martin had for the previous nine years.
A year later, as the Jets report to Mangini's second training camp on Thursday to ready for their first round of two-a-day practices on Friday, there is more stability. The players and coaches know what Mangini expects. Pennington is firmly entrenched as the starting quarterback and team leader, and they've finally properly replaced Martin with someone worthy of being a feature back in Thomas Jones. Continue
It was early in 2006 training camp that Eric Mangini began his habit of playing loud music during practices to hone player concentration. Back then, few thought the Jets would be a .500 team, never mind a playoff participant. But the music, while a welcome distraction from the grind of the preseason, signaled a new attitude from a new coach.
Mangini is sure to continue pumping up the volume at this summer's camp, but make no mistake: 2007 begins with the Jets and their fans singing a far different tune.When the Jets emerged onto the practice field for the first time a year ago, the team was coming off a miserable four-win campaign. It had no starting quarterback, no starting running back, a defense that was unfamiliar with its scheme and a 35-year-old rookie head coach. Continue
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