The Boone Docks
New York Jets news, commentary and insider info from beat writer Rod Boone
search this blog
bloggers
-
Camp Cortland (Day 12)
The big news of the day is actually something most of us saw coming, even though there had been no formal annoucement up until today.
Mark Sanchez gets the starting nod in the Jets' second preseason game, which comes a week from Monday. In Baltimore. On ESPN's Monday Night Football. What a spot for a starting debut for the rook.
"It’s just a matter of the rotation, though," Sanchez said. "Nothing’s changed yet and it’s just the way that things shake out. Of course, I’m excited."
Sanchez's enthusiasm was probably tempered after an atrocious showing in practice. Running with the first team, he was off the Mark (Ok, pun intended) and went just 2-for-10 with a drop and three would-be sacks. Can't kill him on all the sacks, however, because one was a coverage sack (his intended target was blanketed near the sideline) and the other was a CB blitz from Dwight Lowery, who came in unblocked.
But you can kill him for his accuracy problems. He overshot a couple of receivers and had a few throws sail on him.
Clemens, who rolled with the second string today and will be back with the first team in tomorrow morning's practice, was 7-for-13 in one of his typical steady, yet unspectacular performances. After connecting on three in a row, he misfired on his final three attempts.
Rex Ryan isn't sure how many snaps each will get vs. the Ravens. He has said he would ideally like to name a starter by the start of the Aug. 29 game against the Giants. He hasn't totally set that in stone, however. He did admit today that showing something against the blitz-happy Ravens would go a long way in the evaluation process.
"If you can do anything against that bunch," Ryan said, "you can move it against anybody."
From this vantage point, Sanchez is the early leader in the clubhouse. Clemens has some catching up to do. He doesn't think so, though.
"I’d say the good thing about that is that it is an outsider’s opinion," Clemens said of the perception that he's fighting an uphill battle."It is an insider who is going to make the ultimate decision. Rex has the ultimate decision. He is going to make his decision on the starting quarterback when he thinks that one of us has established ourselves, and he believes that one of us will give the team the best chance to win."
Daily QB Meter (on a scale of 1-5, zero being even): One in favor of Sanchez. The rook takes a step back with an uneffective practice, but still maintains his lead.
********************************************
Let's go over the injury situation because we have a new injury to add to the growing list.
Rookie FB Jehuu Caulcrick, who stepped up and filled in for veteran starting fullback Tony Richardson in Friday's loss, has a left knee injury that he apparently suffered in the third quarter. His status for the Baltimore game is questionable.
LG Alan Faneca was wearing a cast and had surgery to repair his broken left middle finger. Faneca is definitely out for the Ravens game and his status for the rest of the preseason remains unclear. But it doesn't seem to be too serious because Ryan said Faneca would be playing if this were the regular season.
Said Ryan: "He'll be ready to go when the season starts."
NT Kris Jenkins (strained left calf), CB Darrelle Revis (left hamstring) and Damien Woody (head) were all held out of practice and there's no definitive date when they'll each be back out there.
********************************************
Unhappy with what they're seeing out of punters Reggie Hodges and T.J. Conley, the Jets decided to bring in free agent Ken Parrish for a tryout today. Parirsh, an East Stroudsburg University graduate, was released by the Eagles Aug. 8.
The roster move was made by the Eagles then, in part, because they needed to sign TE Rob Myers when fifth-round pick Cornelius Ingram tore his ACL. Myers, you might recall, was released by the Jets in May.
Of the few punts I saw of his, Parrish hit his share of decent ones. But there were a couple of Ugly Ducklings, too. If anything, Hodges and Conley have been put on notice. Ryan has had it with the inconsistent punting game.
"I'm tired of seeing ground balls hit," Ryan said, later adding: "I want to see an NFL punt."
(UPDATE, 4:10 p.m.): The Jets have signed Parrish and added him to the squad. He's out on the field stretching with Hodges as I type this update.
********************************************
CB Dwight Lowery struggled against the Rams, getting beat by WR Laurent Robinson for a 50-yard bomb despite grabbing and holding him the entire way. Lowery was flagged for pass interference, but the Rams declined the penalty to take the result of the play. Lowery also muffed a punt that luckily for him was recovered by S Emmanuel Cook.
Lowery was the first player on the practice field today, hitting it at 7:30 a.m. to work on his footwork. He's battling CB Donald Strickland for one of the DB top spots behind starters Lito Sheppard and Revis, and Ryan still has faith in the second-year corner.
Ryan said: "I have confidence in this young man."
********************************************
S James Ihedigbo is still laying the wood and continues to walk that fine line between playing hard and playing smart. He almost got into another scrap today after nearly clobbering WR Britt Davis. Davis caught a pass from Clemens in 7-on-7s and "Digs" led into him a bit with the shoulder.
TE Kareem Brown, who wasn't out on the field with that group and was standing with the reserves a few yards behind the play, took exception and ran to confront Ihedigbo. There were some words exchanged, but nothing happened.
"He's got a knack for getting under people's skin," LB Bart Scott said. "It's one of those things, when you are young like that, you want to attack. In this game you have to learn how to practice. You have to learn how to take care of guys because you can hurt guys and it hurts the team. But you've got to be able to practice fast and go 99.9 percent without pulling the trigger on the last percent."
********************************************
Ryan gave his own impromptu film session for the media, highlighting a few plays from Friday's game to give us a breakdown of things from a coach's perspective.
One play ne pointed to was the near punt block by LB Marques Murrell. Another involved Matt Slauson, whom Ryan said played well, taking on two players and well over 600 pounds on a PAT and completely holding his ground.
He also showed Leon Washington getting downfield out of the backfield to spring a block for Dustin Keller on his 26-yard, near touchdown catch and run on Sanchez's first drive.
********************************************
OL Stanley Daniels, who started at LG in place of Faneca Friday, was excused from practice for personal reasons and is expected to return to the team sometime later today.
********************************************
WR Huey Whittaker, originally released last Wednesday, was re-signed and practiced this morning.
********************************************
We'll throw a little changeup today. Rather than finishing with the Rex Ryan Comedy Hour, we'll part with this barb from Scott about yours truly.
As I was finishing up another interview and Scott was waiting for me to speak with him, he said "Come on, Montell Jordan," a reference to the rather tall R&B singer who made a name for himself in the 90s with hits like "This is How We Do It."
Once we were done, Scott couldn't resist one more jab at a brother.
He quipped: "I bought your last CD."
********************************************
Reminder that you can find me here on Twitter at twitter.com/rodboone.
********************************************
There's an afternoon special teams practice at 4:15. If anything happens, I'll let you know.
Tags: Mark Sanchez, Kellen Clemens, Rex Ryan, Bart Scott, Cortland, Kris Jenkins, Montell Jordan, Leon Washington, Matt Slauson, Jehuu Caulcrick, Tony Richardson, Marques Murrell, Darrelle Revis, Damien Woody, Reggie Hodges, T.J. Conley, Donald Strickland, Ken Parrish, Dwight Lowery, Alan Faneca, Stanley Daniels, Kareem Brown, James Ihedigbo, Britt Davis, Rex Ryan Comedy Hour, Huey Whittaker, Training camp
-
Who are these guys?
That may be what some fans start muttering to themselves sometime early in the first quarter of tomorrow's preseason opener with the Rams at Giants Stadium.
With LG Alan Faneca the latest to join the Jets' list of the walking wounded, the Jets will be down three starters on their offensive line against Steve Spagnuolo's crew. C Nick Mangold (right knee) and RT Damien Woody (head) got dinged up earlier in the week and had already been ruled out before Faneca's broken middle finger on his left hand was revealed during yesterday's homecoming practice at Hofstra.
(Speaking of Hofstra, many of Long Island's huge stable of Jets fans are still bothered by the team's departure, as Barbara Barker noted here.)
So there's a good chance there will be a makeshift lineup of LT D'Brickashaw Ferguson, LG Stanley Daniels, C Robert Turner, RG Brandon Moore, and RT Wayne Hunter when the first-string offense is on the field.
Rex Ryan knows he won't be able to get much of an evaluation on both quarterbacks without most of the starting offensive line intact -- not to mention both Kellen Clemens and Mark Sanchez might wind up running for their lives more often than not -- and that's why we'll probably be seeing even more of QB Erik Ainge than originally promised.
Worried yet? Should they be? None of these injuries are considered to be of the serious variety. I'll go back to the answer Ryan gave in response to my question on Monday, when I asked if he's getting a little concerned about all these nagging injuries cropping up.
"These things happen all the time," he said. "I'm happy that -- knock on wood and everything else -- that we haven't lost anybody for a significant amount of time. So that's a plus. I think when you look through camp, if you can go through and have just the little minor injuries that we've had, I think every team would take that. We've probably had as few injuries as anybody."
************************************************
Katie Strang, our new Islanders beat writer, was filling in for me yesterday and was even gracious enough to update our Daily QB Meter in today's paper. She had Sanchez 6-for-8 with two would-be sacks and Clemens 5-for-9 with a sack.
Clemens had a bad overthrow and also nearly got picked off by CB Lito Sheppard on an errant deep pass. Sanchez connected with converted TE Kareem Brown for a roughly 20-yard hook up near the end of practice.
Daily QB Meter (on a scale of 1-5, zero being even): One in favor of Sanchez. Tilts back slightly in the rook's direction heading into tomorrow's matchup with the Rams.
************************************************
No access today as the Jets held a brief walkthrough at the Meadowlands in preparation for the Rams game. They'll take Saturday off to travel back up to Cortland, where they'll hold six more days of practices before breaking camp for good up there following an 8:15 a.m. special teams practice Friday.
The first practices back in Central New York come Sunday with the first beginning at 8:20 a.m.. There will be a special teams practice at 4:15 p.m.
************************************************
Another reminder that you can follow me right here on Twitter at twitter.com/rodboone.
(Photo: Joe Rogate)
Tags: Alan Faneca, Damien Woody, D'Brickashaw Ferguson, Nick Mangold, Brandon Moore, Robert Turner, Wayne Hunter, Mark Sanchez, Stanley Daniels, Rex Ryan, Hofstra, Kellen Clemens, Mark Sanchez, Erik Ainge, Giants Stadium, Rams, Kareem Brown, Lito Sheppard, Meadowlands, Steve Spagnuolo, Katie Strang, Barbara Barker, Training camp, Cortland
-
Mark Sanchez throws a pick in the afternoon, but an overall good first day
Shorter practice in the afternoon, so not as much in the team drills.
But…
We finally got to see the punter posse out there at the start of practice and the first thing to know is Eric Wilbur, who looked too much like Ben Graham in the recent voluntary minicamp, was significantly better. But I’d have to give a slight advantage on the afternoon to T.J. Conley, the UFA who led the nation in punting last year.
Both had one wicked shank apiece, off the side of their respective right foots. But neither – thankfully – repeated the effort and, after they each boomed 6-8 kicks, we didn’t see much from them the rest of practice. I’d rank both in the “solid” to “pretty good” category for the day, though with the qualifier that the afternoon practice, as was the case in the morning, was indoors.
Mark Sanchez, meanwhile, wasn’t quite as good in the afternoon as he was in the morning, though he wasn’t bad.
He started by completing four of his first five passes in the 7-on-7s before skidding somewhat and finishing 8-for-16 for 118 yards. Rex Ryan lamented the defense getting its hands on five passes – not all of them Sanchez’s – in the morning but not recording on interception. The defense changed that in the afternoon and the victim was Sanchez.
It happened when Sanchez hung a ball on a deep pass down the middle for Paul Raymond. Though the ball traveled a good 50 yards in the air, it was slightly underthrown, allowing CB Marquice Cole (Northwestern) to tip the ball and make the interception on the deflection.
* Incidentally, if you’re wondering: yes, Cole is on the roster. For these rookie minicamps some second-year players can participate, the reason you read earlier about Marcus Henry and Paul Raymond catching passes (they caught quite a few in the afternoon as well). Some of the other roster players out there today: Huey Whittaker, Jehuu Caulcrick, Brandon Renkart, Kenwin Cummings, Stanley Daniels, Brian Schaefering, Mike Kracalik and Ropati Pitoitua.
Speaking of Henry and Raymond, Sanchez’s best 7-on-7 passes were passes to each of them on deep passes down the middle. Henry’s covered 25 yards and Raymond’s went for 27. Sanchez also threw a nice sideline pass to Whittaker for 18 yards. As he did in the morning, Sanchez threw the intermediate sideline routes pretty well.
Not much in the way of the 11-on-11s as Sanchez was 3-for-4 for 41 yards, the best throw a 16-yarder to Henry on the sideline that barely eluded the coverage of CB Sean Smalls.
* A few of the defensive guys who flew – and moved – around a bit out there: DL Matt Kroul, NT Josh Hunt, DE Zach Potter and DE Jamaal Westerman, whom Ryan mentioned after the morning practice.
* Third-round pick Shonn Greene dropped a screen pass with no one near him and spent several moments staring at the ground, obviously PO'd at himself. And RB Allen Patrick, a tryout player from Oklahoma, looked quite good running the ball in the afternoon. Has what seems like a great initial burst.
* Sanchez, during a water break, not only said “thank you” when the waterboy came out to him, but he also started chatting the kid up for nearly a minute, smiling as he did so. Always good to see that because, well, why not. Nothing wrong with being a nice guy.
The minicamp continues Saturday morning.
Tags: mark sanchez, jets rookie minicamp, eric wilbur, shonn greene, t.j. conley, rex ryan, paul raymond, huey whittaker, marcus henry, jehuu caulcrick, brandon renkart, kenwin cummings, stanley daniels, brian schaefering, mike kracalik, matt kroul, josh hunt, zach potter, jamaal westerman, ben graham, sean smalls, ropati pitoitua
