New York Jets Training Camp Practice Look-In (7/29) | NFL

New York Jets Training Camp Practice Look-In (7/29) | NFL

Welcome in to Training Camp Live presented by Honda. Before we start today’s show, we wanted to quickly address the tragic shooting that occurred yesterday in New York City. Four people, including an NFL league employee who was severely injured, were killed, and another person was critically wounded in the shooting at 345 Park Avenue, where the NFL offices are located. While more details are still coming out, everyone here at One Jets Drive wanted to offer our thoughts and prayers to the families and victims affected by yesterday’s events. Now, gentlemen, I know that’s a hard topic to get to off the top, but let’s talk about day two of padded practice for the Jets. Now, EA, yesterday you were here. What were your kind of initial thoughts of practice? Yeah, well said, Caroline. We’re all thinking about everybody impacted by yesterday’s events that just shouldn’t happen and awful situation there. And the NFL is a big family as you all know. So, everybody at the league offices were thinking about today. Uh, as far as the transition, like you said, there’s no easy way to do this, but pads, everything’s been about physicality here at camp. Aaron Glenn, one of his early team periods out there yesterday was a one-on-one tackling drill. Now, we saw that Saturday as well, but where the guys were just getting in positions to make tackles. But yesterday, Q, they were actually taking guys down to the ground. What Glenn has said here is that the National Football League is all about space. He wants his playmakers to get into the open field whereas he is going to demand Q and Caroline that his defense is an elite tackling unit. Yeah. You know, go ahead, Q. Yeah. No, absolutely. I think I I’m really enjoying that the that everybody’s buying into it, right? That’s a tough thing. Uh, you know, I know myself when I was a veteran, a lot of veterans didn’t really enjoy doing tackling drills and it’s a hard thing to really get your sell to your team. So, the fact that everybody’s really going out there and buying in and really enjoying tackling and getting physical, I mean, that’s a good sign for the season. Like, everybody really enjoys uh Coach AG. I know the stress yesterday coming out of yesterday’s practice was just how physical it was. Is there a little bit of an acclamation period though, Q with, you know, the physicality as it ramps up throughout the padded practices? Well, yeah, I think so. But I think if you are getting started with tackling drills day two, I mean, that shows that it’s going to be a really physical training camp, right? So whoever comes in in these joint practices has to really be prepared for that. I think we might see a few tussles, right? Because some teams don’t always want to be physical. But I think if you set that standard and let everybody know this is who we are for the season, that’s a good sign. So they want to be a physical unit but disciplined at the same time. You have not seen any fights here early in camp. And hey, AG was asked about that yesterday and said these guys are professionals. They know what they’re doing out there. One thing that’s not going to be it’s just not going to be allowed by this coaching staff is these dumb penalties. The the post snap the the post whistle and then the pre- snap penalties. That’s the stuff that is they’re not going to accept the stuff that happens in play like a holding penalty and whatnot or a pass interference. That’s about effort. But with that being said, maybe being in the wrong position, but all that other stuff, AG wants a disciplined unit. Yeah, definitely. And I think, you know, when I say tussles, I think the biggest thing is that other teams definitely are not going to be at disciplined. You talk about a team or a coach coming from Detroit that was a very disciplined team, right? So, you want to bring that here. I think coach AG actually mentioned that this was not a very disciplined team. And, you know, for him to call that out, but also say in a way that it’s me, right? It’s my team, not that this is this was another team. This is the team that I’m coaching right now. These guys need to be become more disciplined. Okay. So, I’ll ask you this, Q. How do you balance the physicality that AG is kind of trying to instill in these players while balancing that discipline but not playing like timidly, per se? Yeah. No, definitely. I think the biggest thing is to uh make sure that you’re having some fun days as well, right? So, you want to show that there’s a little bit of a balance, right? Because if it’s too much physicality, guys kind of get worn down. They don’t really enjoy the physicality as much. Obviously, it’s football, you’re going to be physical, but there’s got to be a little bit of balance. Guys like to take care of their body. They want to make it to the season. Well, how does your body feel week into camp right now? Because the Jets did report to camp last Tuesday. They start out with four practices Wednesday to Saturday. You get the day off, then it was the first day of pads yesterday. You’d be out here in pads again. Yeah. I think it’s So for the young guys, it’s difficult, right? Because you don’t know how to take care of yourself. I remember vividly one of my first practices getting into the cold tub and not really knowing too much about how to recover as well. We had cold tubs in Nebraska, but I wasn’t really too in tune to it because I was a young guy. I I was able to recover really quickly. But as I got older, I was watching a lot of the older guys, cold tub, hot tub, massage, all those different things. I just talked to Deario Davis uh the other day and he talked about how in year 14, every day he’s getting a massage, every day is doing body work. So, you know, all those things are important, especially in training camp. Now, before we we have some uh sound from AG’s press conference yesterday. But before we get to that, I kind of want to both of your opinions on just this new philosophy that AG is bringing to the Jets for you, EA. When’s the last time you watched the first day of padded practice at a Jets training camp and there was tackling and one-on-one drills, all of that? You’d have to go a ways back. And I do go a ways back. You know, when I started actually in the early 2000s, you were still doing two days out here in training camping. And sometimes you would have the pads on for a morning session, then you put those pads in the locker room. you’d have to come back in the afternoon, put on that wet equipment again, and then have these long practices. The last really, I don’t want to say tough because you’ve had tough practices along the way, but the the brutal practices, I would say, you go back to the Manini era where he was trying to set a tone as far as, hey, we are going to be a tough team. But those those were different times. No, I imagine. I mean, I only had to do two days in college and we didn’t have a CBA, so it was still pretty tough, right? because they don’t have any rules to follow. But, uh, you know, a lot of these guys now, they have it so much easier. They don’t have two days in college. They don’t have two days in the NFL, right? So, when I talk about the physicality and how tough the practices are, they don’t really know how tough it could be, right? Yeah. Two days. Can’t say that’s uh anyone’s preference. I think I think maybe the one a day is nice for everyone involved. Um, I don’t know. Let me let me know in the back here if we’re ready to roll that sound from AG’s press conference yesterday because AG had some really good uh tidbits and nuggets on what his new kind of philosophy is per se. So let’s hear from him yesterday. All right. Obviously the first day in pads um a day that that we all been looking forward to and like most teams u once you get to that first day um everybody’s thinking about the physical part of it and what actually um kind of gets to the wayside is the discipline and the details and that kind of show up today which I expected but I thought the guys bounced back uh fairly well as practice start to progress so I’m proud of that but man this it’s this the principles of this game will never change. This game is about running, blocking, and tackling. And if you don’t practice that, me as a head coach, how am I giving our guys a chance to win? And the only way to get better at something is to rep it. And I’m not saying we’re going to t tackle every practice. But the thing is, we’re going to put ourselves in position to do it or we’re going to do it. And the guys understand that. They they knew that coming in. Um the thing I like about it is they bought into that and they understand that, too. They understand. I’m trying to do everything I can to help them um help them win games. Yeah. So, you heard just AG just now that running, the blocking, the tackling, those fundamentals really. And he said we’re not going to tackle every single day, but we are going to put ourselves in a position. So, kind of Q, what are your thoughts on that? It seems fairly basic fundamentals, you know. Yeah, I I love what he’s saying, right? And I think one thing that he really reiterated reiterated was the fact that the discipline was going to come with more reps, right? In the beginning, a lot of guys are getting into the physicality. You’re going to have a lot of young guys that don’t really understand the speed of the game. So, they might go overboard, you know, get out of their um out of their technique, right? So, as you get used to the game, get used to the speed, you’re going to have a little bit more discipline. Coach AG knows that. He’s got some patience with his guys, and eventually, you know, they’re going to do exactly what he wants them to do. It It’s a young team. Yeah. And there’s only a handful of guys here over 30. I think it’s all about setting standards and expectations. and this is his first training camp as head coach of the Jets. So, he has expectations and this is getting back to the fundamentals. It’s interesting yesterday guys were really anxious when they had the pads on. So, we saw a couple false start penalties there in the first team period and he expected that because guys are so anxious to get after it with the pads on. But come September 7th against Pittsburgh or September 14th against the Buffalo Bills, that’s not going to be something that he’s going to be okay with. First training camp practice, okay, we’re going to make those corrections and you guys are going to get this out of the way. But, you know, he’s setting a standard right now. Yeah. And I think one thing that we heard a lot of from the players was their thoughts on the padded practice yesterday. So, we’re actually going to listen to a couple players from yesterday and their thoughts as well. Jets fans, New York Jets mini plans are on sale now. Lock in the same great seats for four matchups at Metife Stadium. Plus, receive exciting benefits. Packages start at $156 per seat per game. Buy now at nyjets.com/min plans. Now, we just heard from a couple of the players. It seemed like the the common theme was the energy yesterday. You could really feel that. Yeah, definitely. Did you see that yesterday? Yeah, I listen I I think that’s been throughout camp. It’s all about energy and these guys been jumping around and that’s no surprise because the head coach is moving everywhere. If you watch Aaron Glenn, he’s in constant motion. But, uh, one thing that I’ve been really encouraged about early in camp and that I’m excited to see how they actually develop from this point on forward now that the pads are on, offensive line has really showed some promise here. And, you know, that’s where this foundation is going to be because I think the Jets ultimately want to take teams into the deep water. They want to be a team that’s just a pain in the butt to play against, control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. And this offensive line has shown encouraging signs early. Yeah, I mean I think it’s a great sign. I think that ultimately they want to go back to that smash mouth, right? That’s the that’s the key word that everybody talks about when we talk about tough football. Smash mouth football hits you in the mouth, right? On on offense and defense, right? In the run game, defensively, stuffing the run, right? These are all things that they did not do as well last year that they really want to focus on this year. So, let’s get into kind of that one-on-one tackling that was very prevalent yesterday. We heard a little bit of Byron Coward saying, “I was telling Membu to, you know, hit me in the head. I don’t care. Don’t hold back.” How does that affect kind of the attitude of the team when a veteran like that in the league is kind of giving that message to rookies? Q. Well, the biggest thing for me is it shows that the the young uh uh the approach that they had was really deliberate, right? To make it a young team, right? You want to make sure that you’re building that standard from the ground up, right? all these young guys are going to their first time in the league is going to be doing tackling drills, right? So, that’s what you know about being in the NFL. I think it really sets that standard for the young guys, but then the older guys buying in and telling guys like, hey, listen, this is really good for us as a unit, right? Like that that we are going into this league and showing everybody that we’re tackling in practice, so don’t even worry about it in the season. Everything’s intentional out here. You got Sauce Gardner against going against Garrett Wilson. That’s followed by Bree Hall versus Quincy Williams. These are guys like down to I mean to a tea. AG has this whole thing scripted. And again, we saw this out on Saturday. Uh one of those reps saw in position to make a tackle. Defense goes nuts. The crowd goes crazy. It’s all about energy but fundamentals as well here early in camp. Now, I can’t remember which player said this a couple days ago, but they were stressing that both on the O line and the Dline, AG was really stressing that it starts in the trenches on both sides of the ball. How does that kind of competition between the O line and the Dline in a padded practice like this enhance everybody’s game? We go back to matchups. You got John Simpson, who’s one of the better interior players in the NFL for my money, going against Quinnon Williams. Quinnon Williams somehow is flying under the radar here. I I don’t know how that’s happening, but when you saw the pads come on yesterday, oh my god, him off the ball, his pass rush moves, his explosion, um the way he keeps his body so low and his power. It’s something else to watch. Then we’ve been watching throughout camp that Membu, seventh overall pick out of Missouri every day is going against Will McDonald. Will McDonald came back this spring. He’s all muscled up. He’s at 250. He had 10 and a half sacks last year. I don’t want to say anything crazy, but Will McDonald, he looks like a guy who’s going to get 15 plus. Nothing nothing crazy. Hey, according to AG’s got the coach in there, right? So, listen, there’s a good chance that he might get there. You you talk about what he did last year, right? And coming off of a down year, right? A year that everybody expected so much more from him to come into the year last year and do what he did and now he’s put on more weight. So, he has more tools in his tool belt, a coaching staff that really wants to maximize that from him. But we’re gonna see some special things from him. Yeah. And then, you know, like ABT, too. You see him going against guys like you mentioned BC before, Coward, Tofelli, Naughty, all guys who are competing for time next to Quinn Williams. And ABt is another guy stood out to me. Yeah, I think we’ve kind of discussed and touched on it briefly of who’s going to be that second guy next to Quinn, but Q for you as like a wide receiver. How does that competition in the trenches better your game as a wide receiver? Oh, I think it’s huge because I think you get to see those guys really getting physical. It kind of it wears off on everybody else, right? So, when you get to see those guys really getting into it, I think for me, I’m like, “Oh, yeah.” Like, we’re having fun. We’re, you know, the pads are flying, popping. I mean, that’s real football, right? Like that’s Pop Warner. You know, you do the the Oklahoma drills. So, when you get into that now in the NFL and you get to see it, it really brings back those old feelings. Okay. So, now shifting gears a little bit. Quarterback Justin Fields, he did participate in team drills yesterday. EA, what did you see when he was on the field participating? I thought it was just good. It’s a positive sign that he was out there and you guys saw him out there in seven and seven on Saturday. He had a perfect round, including a beautiful strike over the middle to uh Tyler Johnson. That was a money ball. But I I saw some good things, but you know, Aaron Klein was asked about him after practice. He said he did some good things out there and he’s got some things that he’s got to work on. But the positive signs right now for Fields is he’s out there on the practice field. He basically missed what one and a half full practices or so early in camp. And the other thing that’s interesting when you watch Fields is the run dynamic when you’re watching a lot of these team periods, he’s just going through his progressions and making throws and often times maybe he’s not using his feet whereas in game situations we might see something a little different. Yeah, I know. I think that’s a good sign, right, that he’s able to kind of just go through the motions with his arm, right? So that then I mean the the legs are an easy thing, right? He’s an athlete, he’s a football player, so he’s going to be able to use that at any time. I did see them kind of putting in some zone reads, some some some different things off of that RPOS’s, right? Some different things we didn’t see last year. So it’ll be interesting to get opportunity to see him actually fulfill those. Yeah. And I don’t know if you got to do all the RPOS’s right now while he’s coming back from this location, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not. But Q, what do you want to see from Justin Fields as he’s kind of easing back to that full health and full strength? Yeah, I mean, honestly, everything is a mental rep, right? So, you want to see him going through his progression, but a lot of times you’ll see a quarterback go through his drop, throw the ball, but then make sure he looks at all the other passes, right? See where else he could have gone in that on that play, right? Just kind of going through the mental reps, going over the mental reps, right? Even when somebody else is going, maybe he can go through his drop and kind of just point to where he could have gone, you know, pointing to the safeties, right? Just going through all those mental reps. All right, Jets fans. I want to make sure that you know that Jets game day is better together. Bring a group of six or more to Metife Stadium and take advantage of preferred pricing, access to onfield experiences, and more. To book, visit nyjets.com/groups or call 973-54-94590. Now before we uh wrap up today’s show, Q do you when pads would come on in a training camp practice, did you actually look forward to that aspect? Oh yeah. So I was a physical receiver, right? Like day one we would do blocking drills, right? So DBs against receivers. And for me, I would welcome the physicality. I would welcome the DBs to run into me. Like I want to feel that in order for me to play well in the game, I have to get that first hit. Like there’s a lot of guys that are like that where you don’t really feel confident in the game until you’re able to smack a helmet, you know, and so I would always enjoy that. It would help me get going for the rest of practice. Yeah. I want to talk to you about is there anyone that maybe you noticed yesterday that really took it up a notch with the pads coming on. I know everyone kind of did, so it’s maybe hard to circle one individual, but maybe someone who was a little unexpected to you. It’s not unexpected, but Quinnon Williams took Quinnon Williams took his game up a big t a big time notch. And the other guy to watch in these one-on-one tackling drills, if we see any more early in camp, is Brilan Allen because he’s one of the biggest backs in the National Football League. He’s done a lot of good things whether either catching the ball out of the back field or getting creases at times. But it’s interesting matchups when he’s going against safeties like a guy like in Andre Cisco and things like that because Jet safeties sometimes you will be asked to take down a running back in the open field but you’re probably not going to see a guy as big as Bray. I was going to say maybe not a Brilen Allen. A little scary sometimes for a safety looking at Brillin Allen trying to tackle him. Now Q as we wrap up right before we’re uh saying goodbye to all you guys taking along with us for uh our YouTube show. What is one thing that you want to see the offense take a step towards? Yeah, I mean, I think just continuing to get these good reps in, right? I think uh once you start to go against the defense and now you have the pads on, I want to see the offensive line against the defensive line, right? Keeping that clean pocket, right? Now, you get a better chance to hold on to the the pads, right? A lot of times the shirt the shirt moves a lot, right? Now, you have some pads to get some grip on. I want to see the receivers getting out there, right? They talk about no block, no rock, right? So, now you get an opportunity to really get those blocks, making sure you’re filling those holes. Like I always say, when it’s a big run, it’s because of the receivers on the outside. Mhm. All right. Well, that’s our cue to say goodbye to all of you tuning in with us right now. We are off tomorrow because the Jets players are off tomorrow. So, we will see you next time on Thursday, 8:45 in the morning. Make sure you tune in.

Sights and sounds from the Jets Training Camp practice in full pads.

#NewYorkJets #Jets #NFL

Subscribe to the New York Jets YT Channel: https://bit.ly/2KRtBJd
For more Jets videos: https://bit.ly/2rkCbal

For more Jets action: https://www.newyorkjets.com/
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jets/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/nyjets
Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nyjets/
Get the App: https://goo.gl/wg7imm