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Tough questions, gotta pose them . . .
NJ.com posed this question for a blog – “What we learned from Jets’ spring practices | Surprises, standouts, injury concerns, QB progress.”
I didn’t read the story, but I wanted to give you some of my answers.
Well, first of all, it’s limited what you can learn, since it’s not tackle football, and you can’t touch the quarterback.
The last part of the question pertained to “QB progress.”
Almost impossible to say.
First off, the media was only allowed to attend three of the 10 OTA practices, so how can you access “QB progress” watching only three of 10 OTA practices? And then we were allowed into three veteran minicamp practice, but the third one was cut way short. So we are basically talking about five full spring practices the media got to see the quarterbacks.
And since you can’t sack the quarterback, you can’t even touch them with a feather, this is a whole different ball of wax. How can you really discern much about quarterbacks when defenders aren’t allowed to touch them.
As Mike Tyson once said, “Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the mouth.”
How can you really tell much about tackle football quarterbacks when they can’t be tackled?
So I’m going to take a pass on the quarterbacks.
Standouts?
Once again, hard to tell a ton since there is no tackling, but a few guys caught my eye.
Jamal Adams looks ready to take a quantum leap in Year Two. Not just as a coverage safety, but as a leader. He was very vocal on the practice field, and I think with DeMario Davis, a Jets defensive leader from last year, gone, Adams will be able to have a bigger stage to lead. I remember when the Carolina Panthers got rid of WR Steve Smith, one of the reasons they did this was to allow Cam Newton to become the leader of their offense, which was hard to do with Smith around. I think Davis leaving clears the way for Adams to become the true leader of the Jets’ defense.
Leonard Williams looked good – very quick shooting into gaps. He’s in great shape.
I think RB Thomas Rawls was a steal for the Jets in free agency. The one fight in minicamp was caused by his hard-charging running style, which seemed to tick off a defender, and a little fight broke out. Rawls was a 4.6 guy when he came out of Central Michigan, but he plays faster than that. Rawls is a great fit for zone running system Jets will run a great deal with Jeremy Bates and Rick Dennison running their offense. They guy is tough as boot leather.
A major injury concern is obviously WR Terrelle Pryor. When you sign a receiver coming off a serious ankle injury, and he reinjures the ankle shortly after his arrival, that is a big problem, and right now, based on him re-injuring his surgical ankle, it’s a bad signing. If he can get back to 100 percent, then it will likely be a good signing. But until we see that, it’s a bad signing.
June 18, 2018
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