COURTESY OF NEW YORK JETS COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT
Opening Statement… I’ll start with the injuries, a lot of the same as the other day, (Denzel) Mims, hamstring, (Breshad) Perriman, knee, he should be back on Saturday. We got the swelling down, just trying to ease him back in. (Conor) McDermott, knee, (Josh) Adams, hamstring, (Pierre) Desir, hamstring, (Brian) Poole, (Matthias) Farley with the hamstring, (James) Burgess with the low back, (John) Franklin-Myers with the groin, Jabari (Zuniga) with the quad, and then today (Tarell) Basham had an ankle in one-on-ones and then (Lawrence) Cager had a knee and kind of came down weird, so we were just checking him out on the sideline towards the end of practice. We’ve got a lot of work to do, a lot improvement. Situational awareness, really the sense of urgency has got to go way up on that, got to understand when we’re doing these periods in practice of how this is going to affect the season. We don’t have preseason to work out any kinks, we’ve got to get it done now. That would be really the number one thing that we have to do is our sense of urgency, if it’s high right now we’ve got to get it up even more, understanding that the window is closing quick.
Rich Cimini, ESPN: With regard to what you just said about the sense of urgency needing to go up, is that just because of where the calendar is right now or is it lacking? No, it’s just where the calendar is, it’s just every everything we do situationally in practice, it’s going to matter. We’re not going to be able to spend every day on the exact same situation, so whenever we have these situational-type periods we’ve got to make sure we understand why we’re doing it, what’s going on, we’ve got to listen to what’s being said, we’ve got to take it from the meetings to the field, like we’ve got to make it count. Sometimes we get into that whole training camp routine thinking like this will come up again, well we don’t have the preseason games to work on a two-minute and a half or work on using our timeouts in those situations and all those type of things. So, we’ve got to be on it.
Brian Costello, New York Post: Where are you at right now, Adam, in terms of running through things for a second time or a third time, like where are you at in terms of the installation stuff? I feel like we’ve been, this much of the installation that we have right now, feels like we’ve been going over it forever. If you think about in the spring we got so much more time with our players meeting-wise, that you just keep going back through all this stuff and now that we get to practice it and review it, study the film, make corrections, run it again, I do feel like there has been a lot of things that we’ve been able to repeat first, second and third down and red zone. So, play-wise, we got a good amount in, really it’s just going to be kind of those one-offs at this point. I think that’s probably been the positive that I can take out in how things have gone so far with the schedule where I feel like lack of knowledge is not one of the issues, it’s just going out there executing at a high speed and making sure that we’re detailed and what we’re doing.
Ryan Dunleavy, New York Post: Adam, what did you think of some of the catches your receivers made there today? Cager on the sideline, (Braxton) Berrios on the final play. Have you seen some of those guys stepping up here with opportunities? I feel like any of those guys that have gotten opportunities have done a good job. They’re light in numbers, I know it feels like they’re taking a lot of reps, but this this group is a put-your-head-down-and-work-type of group, and it’s a fun group to be around. They just want to get on the field, they want to contribute. I think those guys kind of can see the numbers and are fighting for those spots and nobody’s taking anything for granted.
Rich Cimini, ESPN: Can you assess Mike White so far? It seems like he’s getting some opportunities with the twos. And also, handicap, you have kind of an interesting quarterback situation from two, three, four, so maybe you could just assess that. Obviously with Joe (Flacco) being out right now, these guys are getting a great opportunity of getting a lot of reps. I think Mike (White) came in, and at least the way I see it, he looks, he didn’t gain a bunch of weight but he looks thicker, he looks sturdier. The way he’s throwing the ball, it’s coming off his hand really well. He’s making great decisions with his reads, he’s made some really nice throws, he’s got really good pocket presence. I mean you’re watching the scout team last year, it’s completely different having him in training camp and seeing kind of how far he’s come in such a short period of time. I’ve been really impressed with how he operates. David (Fales), knowing the offense, that’s always a big plus for him with he doesn’t have to think as much, he knows a lot of the steps down the road where he can be ahead of everybody. When he’s gotten his opportunities, I feel like they both have really had a lot of good completions. We’ve seen a lot of opportunities in the pocket to see how everybody moves. It’s going to be one of those ones where we’re just going to keep battling it out and see who really is going to be the guy to – how this works out, I don’t know where Joe is exactly on the timetable. I don’t want to put a date on that, but you know those two guys just got to keep battling it out and James (Morgan), we just keep bringing him along. He predominantly played in the shotgun in college, so I mean there’s some new stuff there, but he’s shown some abilities and some throws that have been really, really impressive. He’s got a really strong arm and he’s extremely smart. I love the way he operates in practice, he doesn’t let any rep go by without at least getting some kind of mental or physical rep.
Connor Hughes, The Athletic: Adam, can you talk a little bit about Berrios, it seems like he’s now strung together a couple decent practices in a row since he came back from those personal days, and just where do you envision him within the offense aside from just behind Jamison (Crowder)? Obviously with the guy we have playing in the slot, I feel really good where Jamison is, and I think it’s rare that you’re able to find a guy that can contribute on special teams and be involved in the return game and do what he does and he does it as well as he does. To have another guy if something would happen to Jamison that I feel really comfortable putting in the slot, knowing what to do and making plays and finding a way to get open, just seeing that kid play in college down in Miami, I feel like I’ve been watching him play for a long time. So, when we were able to get him last year I was excited to get him on our team, and now seeing him healthy and going out there and compete the way he does, he’s a competitor man. He plays like he’s 6-4, 230. In his mind, I think that’s how he views himself. He gets after it every day.
Brian Costello, New York Post: Adam, you and Joe (Douglas) have talked a lot in the last year about culture, about the culture you want to build here. How do you kind of weigh talent versus culture, because there’s some really talented players in the NFL who would maybe not be the best locker room guys. How do you weigh that and how do you see culture manifests itself, like right now in training camp? I think the first thing we talked about was making sure the locker room was right, making sure those guys are all working together. You want the kind of locker room when adversity strikes you’re looking for the guys that are going to put their head down and go to work, not the guys that are going to kind of get in little cliques and talk amongst each other and disrupt. That’s why I love this locker room right now, these guys just work. They look for solutions, they don’t look to be a problem. They want to try to find a way to put us in the best position possible, and really now when you get that group like that and then our job as we move forward is make sure that we bring the right guys in through the draft and that we’re smart free agency and bringing in guys that have the kind of track record that we’re looking for, and I feel like we’ve added guys like that. The free agents we brought in, they are guys from winning programs for the most part, guys that have done a lot of good things in this league, that have come in this locker room and have been a positive influence, helped guide the younger players. The guys we drafted, it seems like those guys, everybody is the same. Everybody is focused on one thing and that’s how do we put ourselves in position to win, and the more guys we keep adding like that, that’s going to give us the best chance possible win games.
Connor Hughes, The Athletic: Adam, this might be just kind of bookkeeping and stuff at this point, but a couple days ago you guys worked out Kevin White. Is that something you guys are pursuing or is he in the COVID obstacles that he’s got to get over those? We haven’t made any moves, and I know when we get opportunities to work guys out, we’re going to work guys out and really just be ready to go if we need somebody. Obviously the way the wide receiver room has been going so far where it seems like something happens every day so far, we’ve just got to make sure that we have everything lined up as far as if we need to bring a guy in who would be the next one in.
Adam, it looks like Chris Hogan might be working with Sam Donald and the presumed starting offense. What have you seen from him recently that’s made you comfortable putting him up in the depth chart this fast? I think is just competing against him for so many years, just knowing what he brings to the table. He’s a quick study, he’s able to translate a lot of things that he doesn’t necessarily know verbiage-wise into things that he’s done in the past. There’s a lot of things he does know already, because there’s some crossover between New England and ourselves. So, some of it has been easy for him to go out there and play fast. He’s a guy that has a knack to get open. He uses the right techniques, he’s a competitor, I love the way that he plays, the way he practices. There’s something about him that when you get around him you can feel it. He plays aggressive, he plays angry. He wants to be on the field, and I respect him a lot.
Andy Vasquez, The Record: What did you guys like about Pete Guerrero, the running back you brought in today? This goes to kind of what we were talking about just a minute ago with working guys out. He’s a guy we worked out, his name came up and then Josh went down and then we weren’t sure how long he’s going to be out. We thought we liked him in the workout, so we brought him on board.
Rich Cimini, ESPN: Some teams are allowing fans in the stadium in the fall for games, some teams are not. What is your opinion of that? For us, we’re going to focus on us. It’s uncontrollable, I’m not worried about it.
Ryan Dunleavy, New York Post: Adam if I can ask about – building off Coz’s question – about culture, Marcus Maye and what you’ve seen from him particularly any change since (C.J) Mosley opted out and a little more ended up on his shoulders? I thought Marcus, towards the end of last year was one of the guys that I noticed that was really kind of stepping to the forefront. I thought he was a guy that was vocal, he does everything right, he competes at an extremely high level when we get to games, he competes extremely hard in practice. I’ve just seen a growth more than a change than anything. You can see he’s more and more comfortable every day of hey, when he needs to speak up, he does. He’s always one of those guys that, he talks to me a lot during practice, letting me know that we’re not going to do anything on offense. So, I love the energy that he brings, I love the way that he’s practicing, he’s doing a lot of different things. He’s an extremely smart player and he makes a ton of plays on the ball, and its fun watching him do what he does during practice.
Charles McDonald, New York Daily News: I was wondering if you and the team or if any leaders of the team have had any discussions about what happened with the police shooting in Wisconsin over the weekend, and if that has affected the team in any way? No, we haven’t had a chance to meet with our team yet. Today, at some point, I am sure I’ll get with Hymie (Elhai), Joe (Douglas) and Christopher (Johnson) is in the building, so we’ll kind of talk about our next step for our squad meeting, what we’re going to talk about.