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First off, I want to deal with Bart Hubbuch’s twitter comments about the Jets website.
On Tuesday, the New York Post reporter accused the Jets of purposely putting a story about Shonn Greene on this front page of their website to reaffirm that he’s the starting tailback – not L.T..
“Coincidence – that day after LT tells ESPN he is fighting for starting job, lead story on nyjets.com is “Greene At Forefront In Backfield”? Tweeted Hubbuch. “Hmmm – sounds like the Jets are trying to send a message of their own. Lead stories don’t get on team Web sites by accident.”
Hubbuch used to work in Dallas, so maybe he does believe in “The Grassy Knoll.”
Hubbuch might be right that some teams put stories on their website for propaganda purposes, but that isn’t going on in Florham Park. Maybe it did under Eric Mangini, but not now. I have been assured by a very good source in the Jets organization that the football people had nothing to do with that Greene story. Nothing!
And why on earth would Jets want to insult L.T. by pulling a stunt like that? There is no way.
The story was written by Nick “Ernest and Julio” Gallo, a Jets website intern. It was a story prepared during minicamp with the intent of posting it at a later date. There was no ulterior motive for this feature, “I guarantee it,” to quote George Zimmer.
Hubbuch had another tweet on Tuesday about that story.
“The nyjets.com story also specifically refers to LT being used in “select situations.” I wonder how Tomlinson feels about that,” wrote Hubbuch.
Tomlinson feels just fine about that. He was brought in to platoon with Greene, and he knows that. Now you throw Joe McKnight into the mix, and it’s true, LT is going to play in “select situations,” and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing after nine years in the league. Tomlinson might get like 15 touches a game – 10 carries and five receptions, or something like that.
This is all much adu about nothing.
And this is what often happens during the down time in the NFL news cycle from late June to late July – writers starting grasping at straws for story ideas.
L.T. telling Sal Pal that he expects to start isn’t a big deal – it’s just a confident player believing in himself. If he doesn’t start, he’s still going to play a lot. And don’t expect him to make a big deal out of not starting if that is the scenario that emerges.
The way B-Schotty constantly changes his personnel, I expect a mixed bag – some games L.T. will start and other contests Greene will get the nod.
With all the situational substitions in the modern NFL, starting is overrated.
Reps are more important than starting.
Now if L.T. is getting five reps a game – that is something he would be pissed about.