A fairly slow paced practice today. Lots of the ones and twos against the scout teams. I know he is just camp fodder, but WR Chris Davis was just awful today. The kid has hands of stone, can't catch a cold. Kendall on the bike, but doing some arm work today. E Smith is really busting his butt to get back on the field... of all the injured players, he' s working the hardest, and it's not even close. I think he'll be ready for the Pats.... not so sure about Thomas Jones though. He still isn't jogging, but was doing some rehab sort of excersizes one on one with a trainer. Sort of high step running in place stuff.... no pushing off that leg yet at all... lateral excersizes, that sort of stuff. Based on what I saw, if he is ready for the Pats count me surprised. Miller was off the bike for part of the practice, out on the field, but having little participation in drills, if any. After the Smith and Dyson re-injuries, let's hope they are being more cautious now with these guys, and not pushing them to come back too quickly. Stuckey fully participated today, with a small wrap on his knee. He looked healthy to me, but had one pass get through his hands (close call on whether it was PI or not) and Ventrone made a diving INT off the deflection. The DB coach ran over and gave him a head pat. Revis looks pretty good, and Pennington didn't throw his way often to Coles.... he was going after Barrett all afternoon with Cotch. I'd call it a tie... Barrett had his moments, nice pass defensed plays and an INT for a TD. Cotch made a good number of catches. Seems to me that all of the QB's looked indecisive today. Lots of passes thrown OOB, and there would have been a lot of sacks. Ellis looks better than I can ever recall him looking before. Most of his snaps were against the scout team, not Ferguson, but he was interupting things all day. I'd guess he had 5 or 6 sacks today. Like I said, there wasn't a lot of ones against ones today, so it is hard to get a good read on things. Clemens doesn't throw many spirals, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. He threw a 50+ yard wobbler to McCariens today, hitting him right in stride down the left sideline for a TD. Pennington finished the 11 on 11's with a INT for a TD.... Barrett, I believe. I have one comment on Tui... ptoohey. This guy just can't pull the trigger. His vision of the field seems awful, his accuracy isn't, but he is probably the best "Hail Mary" QB on the team. I am still impressed with Ratliff, although I didn't get to see much of him today... when he's in there, he looks sharp. After some full squad punt team drills, they yanked Stuckey off the field and inserted Revis to return. This is what they do on the last punt drill, a live return. Revis lined up around the 28 yard line. As best I could tell, Graham punted from about the 10 yard line. Revis starts backpedaling... and then turns and runs... and still couldn't get near where the ball landed, around the two, before bouncing into the end zone. This was no line drive punt, either. The thing had an excessive amount of hang time. Maybe the longest punt I ever saw Graham launch. Nugent went either perfect or something like 7 for 8 from the 35 kicking at the narrow arena league FG posts. Right on the money. Tutt had a really good day catching at least 7 passes, including one up the middle for a TD. There were several coverage breakdowns on the scout team, leading to wide open recievers who could jog into the end zone... Leon had one, McC had one, I think it was Coles with another.... just wide open breakdowns. Hard to tell which DB's were making the mistakes.... no replays, ya know? The offense, and the QB's in particular did not look sharp today. When the scout teams didn't make major screwups, the O was sluggish. Leon however shined pretty brightly running the ball. In Kendall's absence, it was Clarke taking the majority of snaps with the ones at LG, with Bender also seeing some action there. It seemed to me that Leon's best runs to the left came when Bender was in there. Well, I guess that's it for this year.... T-Bird signing off from Hofstra until next year. Let's hope we have a memorable season!
I was at the practice today too...Pretty accurate recounting, although you are leaving out the ridiculous celebration by Rhodes and Coleman jumping on Barrett after the pick on the last play of camp. And of course, the full team autograph session, which was amazing. I got Pennington, Cotchery, Rhodes, Ellis, D'Brickashaw, Mangold, Robertson, Revis, Hobson, and Von Oelhoffen all on one ball and could have gotten more if I wanted to wait on line for Thomas Jones, Vilma, or Coles. I had to turn away scrubs looking to sign so I would have enough room on my ball for all the starters I could find. Very cool experience. Revis was by far the nicest of them all, with Ellis adn Robertson close behind. Everyone else was basically nice, Chad said pretty much nothing the entire time though. Maybe pissed about INT? Or maybe just tired.
hey, i didnt see you there today, but it was packed. looks like we have a few differences in what we saw out there, but I think you are correct that the long TD to 81 was thrown by 11. I definitely saw 24 getting worked over by the WRs, even when the ball wasnt thrown his way. And I thought Tui did alright running the scout team- but my standard for that is different from what it would be if he was competing for a #1 or #2 spot.
i'm only new so forgive me if this is a silly question, do they ever try anything other than punting with Ben Graham?. Thanks
Generally speaking, no, but many Jet fans await the day that Benny can do something extra. They have tried a few gimmick plays out of the punt formation in the past, but if they did have a gimmick play in there for Graham, they would likely keep it a secret until they tried it in a game.
Thanks Mate, being an ex Aussie Rules player he should be more than good enough to catch an overhead ball
Agreed.... many Jets fans have talked about getting him downfield on a hail mary pass (a desperation long throw into the end zone) because he should be able to outjump most NFL defensive backs for the ball.... but I've never seen them give him a chance to show that ability. Part of that is because of his value as a punter.... they don't want to see him get hurt.
Yeah, but i think that might be better if he was running it, just a thought. I wouldn't want to see it happen very often, he could get injured, and hes not as in the shape as when he played AFL
