Throughout the week, the New York Jets opened their beautiful training camp facility in Flohram Park New Jersey to the public; after spending the past three days there, I can tell you it was a outright success.Monday evening, the club welcomed returning and new members of their Flight Crew Cheerleader squad. The Cheerleaders introduced themselves on a stage set up near Jets Fest in the facility parking lot. Afterwards, they signed autographs for fans.
On Tuesday afternoon over 900 people came to watch the Jets afternoon practice. The club lined people down the sideline of their field turf practice field, with nothing but tiny billboards separating the players and fans. Fans were only seven yards away from the players, and they could hear every word players said to each other, as well as commands and instructions coming from the coaches.
The event was so fan friendly that kicker Jay Feeley decided to walk through the crowd to get to the other practice field to work out, and tight end coach Mike Devlin decided to call on a young fan of only five or six years to come onto the practice field and help him set up the running bridge for tight ends. Devlin even gave some pointers to the youngest to the delight of the fans.
On Wednesday, the practice was much more formal. Because of the huge crowd the Jets had to cordon off all three practice fields with a mesh fence, as the team used the grass practice fields for the 4:10 workout. The team went through two different scrimmages, and so far it appears that Kellen Clemens has the edge at the starting quarterback job.
Clemens was sharp in 11 on 11 drills hitting a couple of receivers down the sideline, and even threading the needle to Jericho Cotchery in between three defenders. Mark Sanchez, on the other hand, struggled to pick up the Jets violent and confusing blitzes, but when given the time Sanchez showed off his rocket arm.
It looks like Rex Ryan is delivering on his promise to field one of the NFL's top defenses. He moved around players, like Kris Jenkins from nose tackle to defensive end, Bart Scott from inside linebacker to outside linebacker, and even Shaun Ellis from defensive end to the outside. This created a lot of confusion for both Clemens and Sanchez, who spent most of their time running for their respective lives. The Jets secondary was extremely physical in bump and run coverage with their receiving counterparts, knocking away passes, and even getting away with a couple of pass interference calls.One site to behold on Wednesday was the appearance of Ryan's father, Buddy Ryan, the legendary coach who invented the 46 Defense that spearheaded the Chicago Bears Super Bowl run in 1985. The elder Ryan spent each of the mini camps days with his son.
The number of people who came to Florham Park on Wednesday was not revealed, but it had to be close to 2,000. Now, Gang Green will move up to Cortland for training camp, for what Ryan claims will be all about "team bonding." The Jets will return to New Jersey, permanently on August 22, and practices will be open to the public for a couple of days.
Photos courtesy of Michael R. Cohen.
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