Tag: Jets training camp

These 38 players are locks for the Jets 53-man roster

These players should probably feel pretty good about sticking around the Jets this season.

The Jets got an early start to camp due to playing in the Hall of Fame Game. So the team is about two weeks into camp and have one preseason game under their belts. At this point, we can start to get a sense of which players are in good shape to make the 53-man roster and how the team will look from top to bottom. So with a handful of practices in the books, let’s run through the players that seem like locks at this point to make the 53-man roster for the Jets.

Some players may feel like they have a good chance to make the roster, like some of the running backs, but competition and numbers at various positions will give the Jets plenty of decisions to make for the final few open spots.

Jets get early break, not holding mandatory minicamp, Saleh pleased with work

Early summer break for the Jets

The Jets will start their summer break a week earlier than expected. The team decided not to hold mandatory minicamp next week, head coach Robert Saleh confirmed Wednesday and reported by NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport.

Part of the reason for the early break is the Jets will be reporting for training camp earlier than other teams since they are playing in the Hall of Fame Game on August 3. Saleh wants to give his players extra time off and they will not be required to be at team facilities next week, which was when the minicamp was supposed to take place.

Saleh also said he is happy with the work the team has put in this spring.

The Jets will wrap up OTAs this week and then be off until training camp. Per the CBA, teams can report to training camp 15 days before their first preseason game. For the Jets, that would be July 19.

Jets remain a work in progress with regular season on horizon

The Jets are working towards bettering themselves on a daily basis under Robert Saleh’s watch.

The Jets have kicked off the Robert Saleh era with two straight preseason wins, but their head coach is not fully satisfied with the product he is seeing on a daily basis.

Not even close.

With its preseason finale against the Eagles just two days away, New York is closing in on the beginning of the regular season. Saleh and his team will board a plane and travel to Carolina to take on the Panthers in just 18 days. Will they be ready to go when that time comes? The way Saleh sees it, there is still plenty of work to be done to get to that point.

“I’ll speak for the entire team, offense, defense, special teams. Nothing is where we want it to be,” Saleh said Tuesday after wrapping up the first of two joint practices with Philadelphia. “I know that’s what’s going to catch the headline, but that’s part of training camp. We’re building. We’re trying to get ourselves better. We’re working every single day and the reality is we’ll never be where we want to be. We’re always going to try and improve.”

Saleh’s sentiment might seem like typical preseason coach speak, but it aligns with what he has been preaching since taking over as Jets head coach in January. Saleh’s “all gas, no brake” mentality is centered on players giving their all every day and leaving the practice field better than they were before they laced up their cleats that day.

When the Jets take the field at MetLife Stadium, their focus will be on working out the kinks before kicking off the regular season. It goes without saying that Saleh would likely prefer to end the preseason with a perfect 3-0 record, but as long as his team gets better against the Eagles, they will be a step closer to where he and everyone else at One Jets Drive want to be.

“It’s a hard, blanket statement in terms of not being where we want to be. You can ask me on a 16-0 team and I’ll tell you we’re still not where we want to be. We’re trying to improve things, we want things to get better. We want to find a way to challenge ourselves and go to bed better than when we woke up.”

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Jets place DB Zane Lewis on injured reserve, re-sign backup safety

The Jets placed Zane Lewis on injured reserve and brought back the recently waived Bennett Jackson in a pair of Friday roster moves.

The Jets made a pair of moves in the secondary on Friday, placing safety Zane Lewis on injured reserve and re-signing Bennett Jackson after waiving him on Aug. 17.

Lewis, who was transitioning from cornerback to safety in training camp, tore his patellar tendon and sprained his MCL during Thursday’s joint practice with the Packers. Lewis signed a reserve/future deal with the Jets in January after spending most of 2020 on New York’s practice squad.

Jackson has spent the last two seasons bouncing back and forth between the Jets’ active roster and practice squad. New York originally claimed the New Jersey native off waivers in September 2019, only to waive him two weeks later and re-sign him to the practice squad. Jackson spent two months with the Ravens before returning to the Jets in December 2019.

New York re-signed Jackson in free agency last March, but he failed to make the 53-man roster out of training camp and was once again re-signed to the practice squad. Jackson was promoted to the active roster in November before landing on injured reserve a month later. Jackson re-signed with the Jets again in April before receiving his most recent pink slip from the team.

In his two years with the Jets, Jackson has recorded just two tackles.

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The 5 hardest cuts from Jets Wire’s preseason Week 1 roster prediction

After releasing a 53-man roster prediction following Week 1 of the preseason, we at Jets Wire explained our toughest cuts.

Training camp and the preseason is the time for players to establish themselves as contributors and lock down roster spots.

It is also the place where NFL dreams sometimes go to die.

The Jets can only carry 53 players once the beginning of the regular season arrives — a far cry from the 90 they currently have in the building with training camp now two weeks in. New York would likely prefer to keep more than 53 players around considering the talent it has at One Jets Drive, but that is not how things work in professional football.

Joe Douglas and Robert Saleh are going to have some excruciating decisions to make at the end of August. Which players did just enough to make the 53-man squad? Which players fell just short and will now have to seek a new opportunity elsewhere? Those questions will be answered after countless hours of watching film and deliberating.

We at Jets Wire took a crack at projecting the 53-man roster after Saturday’s preseason opener against the Giants. All of the cuts predicted in that piece can be seen directly below, followed by explanations for the toughest severances.

  • QB: Josh Johnson, James Morgan
  • RB: Josh Adams, Austin Walter
  • WR: Manasseh Bailey, Braxton Berrios, Lawrence Cager, Josh Malone, D.J. Montgomery, Jeff Smith
  • TE: Daniel Brown, Kenny Yeboah
  • OL: Tristen Hoge, Corey Levin, Jimmy Murray, David Moore
  • DL: Ronald Blair, Michael Dwumfour, Kyle Phillips, Hamilcar Rashed Jr., Tanzel Smart
  • LB: Noah Dawkins, Camilo Eifler, Del’Shawn Phillips, Edmond Robinson, Brendon White
  • CB: Corey Ballentine, Elijah Campbell, Lamar Jackson, Zane Lewis
  • S: Bennett Jackson, J.T. Hassell
  • K: Chris Naggar (released Monday)

6 takeaways from Jets’ Green and White scrimmage

The Jets hosted their annual Green and White scrimmage at MetLife Stadium on Saturday night. Here are six takeaways from the action.

The Jets returned to MetLife Stadium for the first time since last December on Saturday night, hosting their annual Green and White scrimmage.

Last year’s Green and White scrimmage, which featured New York’s backups soundly defeating its starters, took place at One Jets Drive amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Saturday night’s scrimmage marked Robert Saleh’s first taste of the action and the first time that Jets fans flocked to East Rutherford to watch their team play since December 2019.

“It was awesome, just to be able to go through this thing and go through the stadium and just go through as game-like of an experience as we can create for the players so next Saturday [New York’s preseason opener] is normal,” Saleh said. “It was cool.”

Here are six takeaways from the scrimmage and Gang Green’s return to MetLife.

Zach Wilson reflects on loss of Greg Knapp

Jets QB Zach Wilson developed a bond with Greg Knapp prior to the coach’s tragic death.

The Jets suffered an unspeakable tragedy days before training camp when passing game specialist Greg Knapp died following a bike accident.

Knapp died five days after he was hit by a car while riding his bicycle in Northern California. He was 58. Knapp is survived by his wife, Charlotte, and three daughters.

Robert Saleh hired Knapp, a longtime quarterback mentor, this offseason to join the Jets and aid Zach Wilson’s development. Knapp and Wilson developed a relationship during the spring, making his death a tough pill for New York’s rookie to swallow.

“At first it was shock. Complete shock,” Wilson said Friday. “Just because I had just been talking to him the day before, right before the incident happened. It was almost like I didn’t believe it. I felt like I could have just called him right then on the phone and he would have answered. It really hit later on when I was like, ‘Jeez, this is rough.’ I was just praying for him and his family and everyone else involved that we could kind of get through this together.”

Knapp was an NFL coach for 24 years prior to joining the Jets, working most recently as the Falcons quarterbacks coach from 2018-2020. Knapp also worked with the quarterbacks for the Broncos, Raiders, Texans, Seahawks and 49ers.

“It’s tough, man,” Wilson said. “Life is a precious thing.”

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Jets QB Zach Wilson talks introduction to NFL’s business side

Zach Wilson debuted at camp after contract negotiations delayed the start of his summer. The Jets QB spoke about football’s business side.

When the Jets kicked off training camp practices on Wednesday, Zach Wilson was nowhere to be found. Instead of suiting up at One Jets Drive, he was in Los Angeles, getting a glimpse at the business side of football.

Wilson missed New York’s first two training camp practices as his representation and Joe Douglas worked out the kinks of his rookie contract. After prolonged negotiations, Wilson received the upfront, non-deferred signing bonus his reps desired, while the Jets included the same offset language that was written into Sam Darnold’s rookie deal in 2018.

New York’s prized rookie quarterback made his training camp debut on Friday in forgettable fashion, struggling to consistently complete passes after opening the day with an impressive deep ball to Elijah Moore. His first camp performance aside, Wilson was just happy to be back between the white lines after receiving his introduction to an aspect of football that never previously concerned him.

“Now money’s involved,” Wilson said. “My whole life I just wanted to play ball because I love the game. I wanted to get the business done so I could do what I love.”

Wilson went on to say that his girlfriend said she forgot that the quarterback will make money now that he’s a pro. “That’s cause the best part of it is the game,” Wilson told her.

The Jets would have liked to have Wilson on the field to begin training camp, but two missed practices are not going to do much to harm the BYU product’s development. Darnold missed three in 2018 and still won the starting job.

Wilson looked good throughout the spring and while his play on Friday left a lot to be desired, that can be chalked up to typical rookie struggles more than the contract negotiations that kept him sidelined.

With those negotiations now ancient history, Wilson is not planning on giving too much attention to his financials as he prepares for the beginning of his rookie season against the Panthers in Week 1. The 21-year-old will be $22.9 million richer once he receives his signing bonus within the next two weeks, but that money won’t bring him any closer to his ultimate goal with the Jets.

“You can’t buy a Super Bowl,” Wilson responded when asked what he plans to purchase with his new wealth, “so we’ll work for one of those.”

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Jets’ new wide-zone blocking scheme has Connor McGovern ‘fired up’

Connor McGovern is a veteran of the wide-zone blocking scheme and thinks the Jets’ offensive line can thrive in the system.

Connor McGovern’s first season with the Jets did not go as planned, but New York’s veteran center is excited to line up in an offensive scheme that might help his unit boost its production in 2021.

Mike LaFleur and John Benton’s arrival in the Big Apple marked a change in blocking philosophy. The Jets will run an outside zone blocking scheme in 2021, placing an emphasis on the offensive line’s ability to block zones and spaces on the field instead of a specific defender.

New York’s offensive line was not built to run a wide-zone scheme under Adam Gase, as his system was predicated on man-to-man blocking assignments. The Jets still have some holdovers who were brought in for that specific offense, but McGovern does not foresee that being an issue in 2021.

He feels Gang Green’s current crop of linemen — himself included — have the versatility necessary to thrive under the new circumstances.

“This offensive line is definitely built for the outside zone run game,” McGovern said Thursday. “We have a bunch of athletic dudes out there. That’s the family tree that this offense comes from. For me especially, that’s what I like. That’s kind of been my bread and butter and what fits my strengths is wide zone, so I’m definitely fired up about it.”

McGovern’s assessment of the Jets’ offensive line and the group’s overall athleticism is an accurate one. Mekhi Becton is relatively light on his feet for someone with a mammoth frame, while Alijah Vera-Tucker brings the athleticism of a tackle to his left guard position. Alex Lewis and Greg Van Roten have both had success as pulling guards in the past and can translate that into success blocking in a zone system. George Fant and Morgan Moses both have skill sets to operate efficiently in a wide zone.

Then there’s McGovern, who played in a wide-zone blocking scheme with the Broncos.

The Jets have placed an emphasis on establishing the run in the early days of training camp. Pounding away on the ground is the key to a successful west coast offense and it is pertinent that New York’s offensive line picks up its new zone blocking assignments before the beginning of the regular season.

With a veteran of the scheme in McGovern leading the charge, there is a good chance the Jets quickly take to their new style of blocking and consistently open up enough holes for the likes of Michael Carter and Ty Johnson.

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Zach Wilson, Elijah Moore remain unsigned with training camp days away

Two of the Jets’ most promising 2021 NFL draft picks have yet to sign their rookie contracts with training camp less than a week away.

Two of the Jets’ prized offensive rookies might not be ready to take the field when New York reports for training camp in just six days.

Alijah Vera-Tucker signed his rookie contract on Tuesday, leaving Zach Wilson and Elijah Moore as Gang Green’s last two unsigned 2021 NFL draft picks. Both are all but certain to sign at some point this summer, but have yet to put pen to paper.

The Jets have been down this road before with high-profile draft picks remaining unsigned just days before training camp kicks off. Most recently, New York and Sam Darnold did not come to an agreement on offset language in Darnold’s rookie contract until a couple of days into training camp.

Wilson and Moore are both key cogs in Mike LaFleur’s offense, making it pertinent for the Jets that they get their contracts done as soon as possible. Wilson is New York’s prized potential franchise quarterback, while Moore strung together a standout spring and skyrocketed up the depth chart as a result. The more practice time those two have during training camp, the better their prospects of producing right off the bat once the regular season rolls around are.

The Jets will begin training camp practices on July 28.

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