COURTESY OF NEW YORK JETS COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT
Opening Statement… I’ll start with the injury report. (Denzel) Mims was out with the hamstring, (Vyncint) Smith with the core, (Connor) McDermott with the knee, (Cameron) Clark with the shoulder, (Pierre) Desir with the hamstring, (Brian) Poole with the dehydration, (Matthias) Farley with the hamstring, (James) Burgess, low back, (Jordan) Willis with the knee, Jabari (Zuniga) with the quad, (Bronson) Kaufusi with the hamstring. (John) Franklin-Myers was held out today with a groin, and then Josh Adams went out of practice today with a hamstring. Patrick (Onwuasor) went out with a knee, I’m not sure if you guys saw that towards the end of practice. And then, good news, Ryan (Griffin), Dan (Daniel Brown) and Avery (Williamson), all three were able to participate in individual today coming off PUP, which was good to see. Hopefully we’re going to get some more guys back this week, sounds like we will. So, today was a good start as far as how competitive the guys were. Unfortunately, we had a couple more guys go down, but this is kind of the part of training camp where we’re going to have injuries, we’ve got push through, next-man-up mentality, this is where it starts.
Brian Costello, New York Post: Adam, with Mims, you’re just three weeks away from Buffalo, how concerned you getting about his availability for the regular season and being able to get him up to speed? We’re just going to have to put it in fast forward and do everything we can, we can get him as ready as possible. We’ve just got to get him ready to go. It is what it is with training camp and when you have an injury, we just have less time to do it.
Brian Costello, New York Post: It looked like he (Mims) wasn’t even out there today? He was out there. He was on the sideline, but he was out there.
Dennis Waszak, Jr., The Associated Press: Is Poole anywhere close now? We’re going to go through a whole process. It won’t be in the next couple days. We’ll see how long he’s out, but we have a whole kind of procedure we’re going through with him to make sure that when we send him back out there that he’s in good shape and ready to go.
Brian Costello, New York Post: I know we’ve kind of harped on (Poole) with you, but it’s just strange to be dehydrated to miss a whole week. Is there more to it than dehydration? It’s just kind of the reaction to the dehydration. It just kind of makes us go back and reevaluate kind of how we even got to that point. So, that’s why we’re being cautious with it. When he gets back out there, we want to be able to be out there for the entire practice. We don’t want to keep going through this cycle, so we want to make sure we get it right.
Rich Cimini, ESPN: Just circling back to something you mentioned the other day, like a team-controlled scrimmage. Do you have anything planned coming up this week, doing the scrimmage? Yeah, I mean we do. Do you want me to just lay out everything for you? (joking)
Rich Cimini, ESPN: Just tell me what day so I can be there. Just show up, you’ve got nothing else to do. (joking)
Rich Cimini, ESPN: Do you know which day yet? I might. I’m not going to tell you Rich. You just show up, we’ll let you know when you get here. (joking)
Kim Jones, NFL Network: When you mentioned hopefully getting some guys back, is there any chance Mims can start doing individual stuff in the coming day or days? We’re obviously shooting for that. Hopefully we can get him back sooner than later, it’s just I don’t want to put a prediction on a soft tissue injury because all it takes is, he’s running one day, he goes and cuts and it doesn’t feel right and then it could set you back a couple days. I don’t want to jinx it.
Brian Costello, New York Post: (Lawrence) Cager made some nice catches today. Obviously at 6-5, he looks the part. What have you seen from him? He’s a quick study, very, very intelligent. He’s obviously a very big body, smooth runner. He really tries to be a detailed route runner, he tries to do the little things right when we’re talking about certain routes versus certain techniques. He’s just got to keep playing. I think when he gets opportunities like he did today and he makes those plays, it’s encouraging for us to see because it’s hard to find guys that are that big that run as smooth as he does and are as sharp as he is. So, he’s a guy that has obviously came in here with a very big chip on his shoulder and he wants to prove a lot of people wrong.
Dennis Waszak, Jr., The Associated Press: Is this kind of the fun part for you, given that’s it’s training camp, seeing guys like Cager and (Jehu) Chesson and Jeff Smith and (George) Campbell, seeing how these guys develop? Yeah. It feels like we’ve been here doing this for a while, and the fact that we’ve been able – and I know we haven’t had the live reps, but those guys learning the offense and what to do and seeing whatever our defense does, the adjustments they need to make. So, they’re starting to really play a lot faster than they were in the previous week. Everybody knows that even though we have been doing this for a few weeks now, hey the time is running out, so the sense of urgency goes way up. Guys are starting to feel more comfortable with what we’re doing, they know the schedule, we’ve got some consistency there. So, a lot of the anxiety of things that really are non-football related as far as on the field are gone because these guys, they’ve got a rhythm now. So now it makes it easier for those guys to just go out and compete and play and play the way that they want to play.
Andy Vasquez, The Record: You said that the (Trevon) Wesco has come a long way from what you saw last year. What’s kind of the next step for him? What do you want to see between now and the start of this season? Just keep fine tuning his technique, whether it’s the run game, pass pro or routes. I think he’s doing a good job of getting better every day and all three of those. We’re using him in a lot of different spots and he’s doing a great job, he doesn’t have mental errors, he seems to be right majority of the time when he kind of has the either or decision, and the guy gives you everything he has. Seeing him, being able to be a part of our special teams where last year he was kind of a backup, you know you’d love a guy for that to be able to contribute. Even though, the special teams game has kind of changed, it’s not really built for bodies like that anymore, built for more those smaller, quicker athletic types, but he’s done a good job of carving out a little role for himself on special teams, which is huge for (Brant) Boyer. And now seeing him really being such a Swiss Army knife for us on offense, it’s the value that just keeps going up.
Charles McDonald, New York Daily News: Adam, as you guys were moving through the draft processes here, what were some of the things that attracted you to Denzel Mims as a prospect and also how much of a role did you have in that selection? I mean he’s a big guy that can run really fast, make some incredible catches, has great body control. These are all things you guys haven’t gotten to see yet and I haven’t seen live. The amount of plays that he made, there was a ton of them. When you got a guy like that, when a ball is thrown, whether it be behind you out in front of you, and you can either kick it into gear and go get it, or make that catch where your body’s kind of contorted in a weird way. Those are things that you can’t teach. Those are abilities that he has, and I was a huge fan of him. I was really excited when we were able to take him and I’m just waiting for him to get back, get out there so we can kind of see how far we can take him this year.
Kim Jones, NFL Network: Adam, what are you seeing in Sam (Darnold)? I think he’s got a lot more control of the offense this year. He’s not thinking when the play comes in, it’s just more of a reaction now for him. He’s able to just really process things so much faster. This is just typical young quarterback last year and you’re one, trying to put it all together, and trying to learn a bunch of stuff with a bunch of guys that we’re trying to learn as well. Now he’s got guys around him that are familiar with what’s going on. He doesn’t have to really worry about where everybody’s going because they know what to do. The offense line, especially this year is really, really sharp, I mean these guys are on it. They work well as a group. That’s something that I’m sure for him, he watches kind of what happens in practice and he hears those guys communicate and then you just look at the size of our offensive line, if you’re a quarterback, you’re feeling pretty good, thinking, “I got some time to throw.” So, he knows he does a good job of understanding, really the concepts of what we’re doing week in and week out, whether it be pass protection, run game or route concepts. He’s just got to deliver the ball and I’m pretty sure you guys have all seen enough to say that he can do that.
Kim Jones, NFL Network: Is his accuracy where you want it to be? Were always going to be trying to improve. Throws to the left and to the right, we’re always kind of working on his alignment. He does have the unusual ability to kind of be in awkward positions and make some really impressive, accurate throws. Especially sometimes when you see him make throws to the left where his legs and his upper body are really tied together which, a lot of times when that happens, you’re not going to see a completed pass and he puts it exactly where you want it. So, I mean that’s just, somebody else gave him that.
John Boell, Newsday: I know it’s Avery Williamson’s first day back, but what would a healthy AW mean to your linebacking core? You’re talking about a guy that I think five out of six seasons has had over 100 tackles. This guy’s been productive throughout his whole career. Guy has an unbelievable attitude, he’s worked extremely hard to get back, I know I’m excited to see him back on the field. I just want him to be able to get in those team drills and kind of get his feel back, I mean it’s been a year. Just hoping his confidence is high with as far as the work he did on the knee that he doesn’t worry about it and he just goes out and plays fast.
Brian Costello, New York Post: What is the timeline Adam for those guys, the three guys that came back in terms of getting them back in? We’re just going take it as fast as we can, but at the same time be smart. That probably makes no sense but we’re trying to be smart with this. When we bring guys back we want to make sure that they’re there for the duration. We don’t want to have, hey we brought him back, it’s too fast, now we lost guys for more time. We want to make sure the way we do this is the right progression, I think it has been so far. Today was the first step, as far as on the field with the team. They went through a lot before they got here and now as you know we’ll just keep progressing.
Andy Vasquez, The Record: Is it more challenging bringing guys back in this training camp that is kind of not normal as opposed to other years? Well it’s just everybody came in, in different kinds of shape. The thought of bringing guys back, hey we are going to do strength and conditioning. Going through a timeline of April to June, and then guys have been on their own for five weeks, there’s a rhythm there and there’s access in a normal year to workout facilities and things like that. Every guy had different access to things. Some guys didn’t have anything. Some guys had to build their own gyms in their garages. Some guys had to run around their neighborhood just to stay in shape. It’s an unusual year as far as how guys can stay in shape and some guys are in better shape than others. And at the end of the day, nothing replaces this environment because of the competition. You know, you’re fighting for a job so everything you do is truly important so when you get out here you’re talking about anxiety going through the roof for 22, 23, 24-year-old guys, I mean that’s real. And everybody’s got to get in shape as fast as possible, I mean time is kind of our enemy and we have to do everything we can to just get ourselves ready.
Brian Costello, New York Post: Adam did (Bronson) Kaufusi change positions? Bronson Kaufusi? I noticed his number was different today? You just noticed this?
Brian Costello, New York Post: No, I noticed it the other day, but he hasn’t been on the field. So I wanted to wait till he was actually in a practice before I (asked). We moved him to tight end. He was he was killing us on scouting last year and he’s a guy that we feel like gives us a lot of flexibility. One, we felt like he could learn the position. We felt like that we could develop a role for him. And then at the same time, he’s a guy that if we ever got in trouble, and he was on the roster, and he was a tight end, if we had numbers go down on the defensive line, we know he could always go back over there and play a little two-way football.