Jets guard Greg Van Roten relishes packing for Green Bay

It will be just like old times for Greg Van Roten.

As the Jets were preparing to leave for Green Bay, where they will hold joint practices with the Packers Wednesday and Thursday, the offensive guard fondly reminisced about his time there. The Packers signed Van Roten as an undrafted rookie free agent from Penn in 2012. The former Chaminade star spent two years in Green Bay.

"It was pretty surreal, honestly, just considering the path I took to get to my first training camp," Van Roten said. "You walk into that locker room and you have players like Aaron Rodgers, Charles Woodson, B.J. Raji, A.J. Hawk, some guys on the offensive line - they had Jeff Saturday my rookie year.

"It was pretty cool as a rookie to be around those people and it was even cooler just to be in that building because when you think of football it’s hard to think of it without the Green Bay Packers. Going back, it’s going to be exciting."

Van Roten, who played in Canada for two seasons after Green Bay, said this is a chance for the Jets to see "how we stack up with one of the better teams in the league."

Valuable time lost

Rookies Elijah Moore (quad) and Alijah Vera-Tucker (pec strain) could go into the regular season with no game experience under their belts. Neither played last Saturday against the Giants and they won’t play in Green Bay. But Robert Saleh hopes they can play in next week’s preseason finale against the Eagles.

Saleh said they both would be ready for Week 1 at Carolina.

Roster moves

Needing to get the roster down to 85 by 4 p.m. Tuesday, the Jets waived safety Bennett Jackson, running back Austin Walter and defensive lineman Michael Dwumfour. They also placed offensive lineman Cameron Clark on injured reserve. Clark, a fourth-round pick last year, suffered a spinal-cord contusion in practice two weeks ago.

The Jets had released kicker Chris Naggar on Monday. That left Matt Ammendola, a free agent from Oklahoma State, as the only kicker on the roster. Saleh said they wanted to give Ammendola "the opportunity to see if he can seize this thing."

Two-minute drill

Defensive tackle Nathan Shepherd said with all the different skill sets the Jets have on the defensive line reminds him of "a Marvel’s Avengers team." Shepherd said his special power is a "Hulk smash." … Saleh on he and Packers coach Matt LaFleur – who were graduate assistants at Central Michigan in 2004 – now holding joint practices together: "When we’re sitting there as GAs at Central Michigan I don’t think we ever felt that this would happen. But it’s pretty cool that it did."