Jets' Pouha has big shoes to fill
Photo credit: Getty Images | Sione Pouha #91 of the New York Jets warms up before the preseason game against the Baltimore Ravens. (August 24, 2009)
Kris Jenkins
Oct. 18: Bills 16, Jets 13
OAKLAND, Calif.
Sione Pouha remembers when it happened to him, how an anterior cruciate ligament tear ended his season prematurely, just as it did with buddy Kris Jenkins last week.
Pouha went down on the fourth day of training camp in 2006 and was placed on injured reserve the second week of August. That took away his chance to build on the experience he gained in his rookie year a season earlier, when he got a taste of being a part of the defensive line rotation.
"Like they say, you never know what you have until it's gone," Pouha said. "I had always appreciated football, but that moment kind of put things into a little more perspective. But you take advantage of the situation."
That's precisely what Pouha plans on doing now that he's stepping into Jenkins' huge, Shaquille O'Neal-sized shoes. The Jets will use a rotation of Pouha, Howard Green and Mike DeVito to plug into Jenkins' spot, but it's the 6-3, 325-pound Pouha who'll get the starting nod at nose tackle beginning with today's game against the Raiders at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
Sliding in for a four-time Pro Bowler who consistently commanded double- and triple- teams isn't going to be the easiest of things for the fifth-year defensive tackle.
"I'm not looking to try to match or try to mirror anything that Jenkins does," said Pouha, 30. "Kris Jenkins is Kris Jenkins, and the biggest thing that I can try to mirror from him is the things that would help my game out of his influence. His ferociousness, his recklessness, his violent nature. Ever since Kris got here, that's something I've always kind of looked at and admired. A couple of times we'd talk, go to dinner or whatever, and I'd ask him questions and pick his brain.
"The most important thing he said is 'you're a violent player, you're reckless. But do it in your own way.' So that's one thing he's always taught me."
Pouha, who played collegiately at Utah after serving a Mormon mission from 1998-2000, isn't being thrust into a role with which he's completely unfamiliar. When Jenkins strained his left calf during the second day of training camp in August and was sidelined for two weeks, it was Pouha who got most of Jenkins' reps with the first team.
He also played alongside Jenkins on the line for more than a handful of snaps through the first six games and was plugged into the starting lineup in the season opener against the Texans. With Shaun Ellis serving his one-game suspension, defensive end Marques Douglas moved over to Ellis' spot and Pouha lined up at Douglas' defensive tackle spot, an indication of his versatility and just how much the coaches believe in his ability.
"I think Sione has proved that he's a legit NFL defensive lineman," first-year defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said. "While he's no Kris Jenkins, he's not a Pro Bowler, when you see the two standing next to each other, it's an optical illusion. You think Sione's small. He's not a small man at all. He's probably over 300 pounds. He's one of the strongest guys on the team. His strengths are his strength. I think he's a better athlete than people give him credit for."
Said Rex Ryan: "He's just a powerful guy. Any time you come in and see us going through drills, hitting that buck board, he is a powerful man. When his pads are down and he rolls off the football, he's a handful in his own right."
Still, Pouha isn't all about brute strength. He has a somewhat softer side. He needs nimble fingers, after all, given that he plays the piano and also gets down on the guitar on occasion. He's also a master of the turntables, spinning records when he's doing his private DJ thing.
Said Pouha: "I have a little twists on the ones and twos."
Right now, though, he's more focused on twisting around something else: the notion that the Jets are in a heap of trouble without Jenkins, their mountainous run-stuffer and force in the middle of that defense.
By the time this season is in the books, Pouha wants to be remembered in his own way, and not just as one of the guys counted on to replace Jenkins.
"Losing my brother," Pouha said, referring to Jenkins, "yeah, definitely, he's a big presence in there. He's a guy that you look to. He's big brother, he's big bear. He's big everything. Him not being there, it's going to be different. But the fact of the matter is we're Jets; things happen in football. You just move forward."
