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Florham Park – Time for a heaping helping of Jets Whispers from One Jets Drive in bucolic Florham Park, New Jersey . . .
When looking at the Jets’ depth chart that was released on two occasions during the preseason, take it with a grain of salt.
It’s put together by the team’s PR department. It’s not an official coach’s depth chart.
The official depth chart comes out right before the season . . .
As we mentioned last week, when the Jets released Jake Heaps and signed Josh Johnson, the move had nothing to do with Heaps.
The move was made due to concerns about Matt Flynn.
As I mentioned, the day of the Johnson signing, Flynn didn’t look good in practice. He had a badly under-thrown deep ball that was picked off by Darrelle Revis.
Today after practice he was in the trainer’s room working on some kind of rehab machine with a trainer.
I guess it was pretty naïve of any of us, including the Jets, to think he was going to healthy by now, considering he came in with ankle and hamstring issues.
So if his health doesn’t improve, Johnson would move into the #2 role.
Bryce Petty isn’t ready to be a #2. Not even close.
And that shouldn’t be viewed as a shot at him.
He’s not ready. Instead of rushing him like RG III, Marcus Mariota or whichever college spread QB you want to throw out there, he should sit for two years. Do this right. Learn from the other teams making mistakes starting spread QB rookies too soon.
These college spreads don’t involve reading progressions, which you need to do on the NFL level. It’s basically taking the shotgun snap and firing to a predetermined read from the offensive coordinator.
So the Jets’ primary backup should be Flynn, Johnson or Geno Smith when he’s healthy, not Petty . . .
Manish Mehta of the Daily News got a one-on-one with Todd Bowles after the coach’s press conference today.
Upon seeing this, one beat writer accused the Jets of taking a Neville Chamberlain approach with Mehta, who has caused them quite a bit of trouble.
“Give him Sudeten, and he will leave us alone,” said the writer.
Mehta also got an exclusive one-on-one with Brandon Marshall today . . .
One other thing on the Jets’ surprising use of their highly-paid #2 receiver, Eric Decker, as a punt returner, in their third preseason game, which was somewhat risky.
Todd Bowles said after the game they didn’t have anyone else, due to Jeremy Kerley’s concussion.
I don’t mean to pick on Bowles over this, and perhaps he got some bad information from an assistant, but they did have two other guys.
Javier Arenas, who was released yesterday, has a lot of punt returning experience.
And Walter Powell, who returned a punt for a touchdown against the Giants after they pulled the plug on Decker, returned punts in college.
In fact, I actually thought that Powell was more of a kick returner in college, but he actually was Murray State’s punt returner his final three years, and their kick returner just his final two years. So he actually had more punt return experience in college than kick returning . . .
There is big new mural on the wall outside the Jets locker room that states, “Champions play as one.” . . .
August 31, 2015
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