Jets' Randall Cobb still making an impact
Jets receiver Randall Cobb catches a pass during training camp at the team's training facility in Florham Park, N.J., on Aug. 23. Credit: Patrick E. McCarthy
FLORHAM PARK, NJ – The Jets thought they knew what they were getting when they lured Randall Cobb away from the precipice of retirement with a contract offer this offseason: A strong leader, a veteran presence, an aide-de-camp for Aaron Rodgers.
So far all of that has been as advertised and more.
“He’s a stud, man,” coach Robert Saleh said. “Everything we heard about him from a leadership standpoint is priceless. You can’t put a pricetag on that. He’s been awesome… I get why Aaron loves him so much.”
What they probably weren’t counting on is just how much quality football Cobb seems to have left in him.
He’s spent the summer showing that even at age 33, even coming off surgery to remove bone spurs in his ankles that hindered his play the past two seasons, he can still make an impact. And now he heads into the regular season with what appears to be a significant — perhaps even starting — role in this offense waiting for him.
There are plenty who will be surprised to hear that. Some likely within the Jets organization.
They thought they were getting a model citizen and were happy with it.
They may have wound up with one of the best value signings in the NFL.
Don’t count Cobb among the shocked, though. Even as he mulled the end of his career in the weeks after he walked off the field at Lambeau in Green Bay with Rodgers on his side in January, the two of them linked while strolling toward unknown futures that would eventually bring them back together in New York, Cobb says he knew he had more to offer than just the intangibles.
“I know what I can do, I know what I am capable of,” he said on Tuesday. “It’s just a matter of getting an opportunity and going out there and proving it.”
That’s what he’s gotten with the Jets.
Some of those opportunities have come about with fellow wide receiver Corey Davis apparently deciding that he’s had enough of football and stepping away from the team. Then there was Allen Lazard missing a few days in camp with a shoulder injury and Mecole Hardman dealing with a hand injury.
It’s left Cobb, who began camp on PUP but said he hasn’t been this healthy in two seasons, as a somewhat unexpected key component.
“He looks really good,” Saleh said.
Cobb is definitely glad he didn’t hang ‘em up this offseason.
“I think watching ‘Hard Knocks’ would have definitely made me wish I was still playing,” he said.
Now he gets to be on it instead.
“When you love the game the way I do, and I think a lot of players will say this, it’s hard to go into that next phase of life,” he said. “I know at some point that time will come, but luckily it’s not right now.”
The doubters? Cobb heard them. It was impossible not to.
“I honestly don’t care,” he said. “I know who I am.”
The Jets knew it too. That’s why they signed him.
Despite having such a clean reputation, it was, ironically, a play outside the rules — a little dirty, even — that has stood out for the Jets so far and cemented his place on this team.
On the opening drive of Saturday’s preseason game against the Giants, Cobb came across the field and drilled Giants safety Bobby McCain. It was flagged as an illegal blindside hit and while Cobb has yet to receive a FedEx from the league telling him just how much he’ll be fined for it — “I’m on alert,” he said — the Jets loved the tenacity he showed.
“I know he had the of penalty but, I mean, the mindset to go get a block,” Saleh said with some level of admiration.
Rodgers was more stunned than anything.
“I couldn’t believe it,” the quarterback said. “I’ve been around Randall Cobb forever. We talk about smart players and doing smart things on the field. I don’t know what was in that. I was watching that in slow motion going, ‘No, no, no, Cobby, what are you doing?’ We were laughing because that wasn’t a penalty when we started playing, but it’s been a penalty for a while, so not the smartest play.”
Still, Rodgers had some fun with Cobb about it. When they came back to the huddle, those ‘Hard Knocks” microphones caught Rodgers telling him he was going to lose all his training camp money over that hit.
“What are you doing?” Rodgers asked him. “This isn’t 2014.”
Interesting choice of years by Rodgers. That was the season, 2014, when Cobb made his only Pro Bowl. He caught 91 passes for 1,287 yards and 12 touchdowns, all career highs that still stand.
It was when Cobb was at his absolute best as a player.
The rules have definitely changed quite a bit since then.
Maybe Rodgers senses that Cobb hasn’t as much as we were led to believe.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
