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Florham Park – The Jets wrapped up training camp today. Here are some observations from Wednesday in Florham Park . . .
Jets promising rookie cornerback Parry Nickerson, coming off some kind of injury, seems back to full strength.
He was participating in special team’s drills today, attempting to break through double team blocks.
But before this drill, I saw him running sprints on a distant field. At first, I wasn’t sure who it was and my reaction was, “Wow, is that guy fast!” And then I saw the number. Nickerson has tremendous speed . . .
Different players give a pep talk to teammates after the team finishes stretching.
Today it was nose tackle Mike Pennel.
Somebody asked me what I thought of Pennel as a player.
My position on Pennel is simple. With his size and power he can be dominant at times, but he needs to do it more often.
He has been starting at nose tackle for the Jets most of training camp with Steve McLendon sidelined for the last several weeks . . .
Lorenzo Mauldin had a cryptic tweet the other day about being on the roster bubble.
“Praying for better days. I’m ready for what is going to happen, so it’s no a surprise. Captain Obvious told me,” he tweeted.
He deleted it and blocked all the writers on Twitter who he felt blew the tweet out of proportion.
He tweeted today, “Healthy and ready to go! Overcoming odds is what I do, it’s a mentality. Say what you want, you think you’re the first to doubt me? You people take nothing and turn it into something! My tweet has nothing to do with my time with the Jets! I’m proud to be a NY JET and will ride until the wheels fall off! Relax people!”
This is a guy who was in 16 foster homes growing up. This is a guy who thought he was going to South Carolina, but they pulled the scholarship late, and he ended up at Louisville.
So you can understand why at times he feels people are against him.
For some reason this summer, he has not received a lot of reps. To me, just watching practice this summer, it seems
like he’s behind Jordan Jenkins, Josh Martin, Frankie Luvu, Brandon Copeland and Dylan Donahue, based on how little he’s getting out there. I don’t necessarily think all these players are better.
I don’t know what happened. He probably shouldn’t be behind all these guys, but that is the hand he was dealt.
If he’s cut, I’m sure he will get picked up somewhere else.
If he leaves here, I think he might be a better fit as a 4-3 defensive end in a place like Carolina, Atlanta, Tampa Bay or Dallas. That is the position he played in college. Not sure 3-4 OLB is his best spot . . .
You can tell watching certain guys run today, hobbling in their gait, that after three weeks of camp, their legs are feeling it.
I’m sure some of you know the feeling I’m talking about – beat up legs after intense training that make it a little harder to run between drills . . .
Pictured above is new Jets center, #61, Spencer Long. Look at the size and strength of that cat. He’s going to make a big difference.
August 22, 2018
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