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Florham Park – Dan Leberfeld’s Thursday Florham Park Whispers are in the house. Just the good stuff. Now is a great time to sign-up. Go for it . . .
Jason Taylor is wearing a bulky brace on his injured left elbow, but it looks like he’s going to play.
The late sack by Taylor against New England is a byproduct of what a crafty pass rusher he is. He is playing a chess the entire game, setting up the offensive tackle for moves that he will use later in the game. It clearly worked on that sack because he had Sebastian Vollmer baffled on the play . . .
Somebody asked Bart Scott today about what it’s going to be like playing without three of the top defensive players – Kris Jenkins (knee), Calvin Pace (foot) and Darrelle Revis (hamstring).
In the question, somebody called Pace “the team’s top pass rusher.”
With all due respect to Calvin, who is a terrific football player, Taylor is the team’s best pass rusher. He’s a professional pass rusher. I haven’t seen Pace execute the kind of move that Pace made on Vollmer for the sack. Pace is a good, not great pass rusher. Taylor is an all-time great pass rusher.
It is pretty impressive that the Jets could lose three starters, and have backups like Sione Pouha, Jason Taylor and Antonio Cromartie to fill in. In the case of Pouha and Taylor there is no dropoff from the starter. With Cromartie, the dropoff isn’t as much as you might think. He’s got to cut down on the penalties, but his man-to-man cover skills are rare, and as you have heard by now, he was awesome at Thursday’s practice . . .
It’s a little surprising that the Jets waived third string swing tackle Patrick Brown, when backup swing tackle Wayne Hunter (calf) is injured. They might try to bring Brown back next week, but I would be surprised if the Minnesota Vikings didn’t try to bring him back. They recently attempted to raid the Vikings practice squad to sign offensive tackle Breno Giacomini.
Perhaps the Jets are going to elevate center/guard Robby Felix from the practice squad due to Nick Mangold’s (shoulder) uncertain status . . .
Taylor isn’t the only player with a left elbow issue. Jim Leonard also is dealing with some kind of left elbow problem, but it doesn’t seem serious . . .
Pace was walking around a lot better this week in the locker room than last week. We saw no limp at all today . . .
Smart move today by Rex Ryan by announcing, at the top of his press conference on Thursday, he wasn’t going to talk about Braylon Edwards DWI. While theoretically, he can’t stop questions, most reporters will generally honor this kind of wish. There was only one Edwards’ question at the end from ESPN New York . . .
While from a football standpoint it would have been foolish to de-activate Edwards for the Miami game, but Jets management also felt, from a CBA standpoint, they couldn’t do it, even if they wanted to.
The NFLPA will always file a grievance if a team de-activates a player for a DWI – ALWAYS. And the head of the union was at the Jets complex today in Florham Park for a scheduled meeting with the players. I’m sure he warned them.
That is the spin you keep hearing out of Florham Park. And while it is spin to a certain degree, it’s also true . . .
The Jets better get their protection issues fixed because Mike Nolan loves to send a ton of blitzes – cornerback blitzes are a favorite of his.
D’Brickashaw Ferguson has surprisingly had two shaky games in a two shaky games in a row, and you have to wonder if the embarrassment of being in Edwards’ car might distract him on Sunday. The man takes great pride in his image, and this might the first black mark on him – ever . . .
Steve Weatherford is punting the stuffing out of the ball in games and practice. He’s punting so well, even Mike Westhoff, who is very hard to please, has nothing bad to say about him right now.