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New Jersey – The Jets are going back to Cortland. Good idea? Bad idea? Let’s take a closer look . . .
I personally think it’s a really good idea.
This is the way most teams used to do it.
I remember years ago I covered a New Orleans Saints training camp in Wisconsin.
Going away helps a team focus on football more, and brings the roster closer together. There are less distractions – it’s mostly football and each other.
When the Jets trained in Florham Park, guys would go home during breaks, go to Best Buy, do their own thing. In Cortland, it’s more football and team-centric.
“I love the fact that we are going back to Cortland,” Rex Ryan said today. “Everyone knows how I feel about going away. I think it is a big part of building our team camaraderie.”
Let me add one thing on the team camaraderie issue, something that has changed from the old school days of going away for training camp.
What has changed is the advent of the Smart Phone, the I-Phone, whatever your phone of choice is.
So it’s more of a challenge these days to create-bonding situations (away from meetings and practice). Because instead of sitting around during down time, and having long talks, really getting to know each other, many of the players, will be glued to their phones.
We all see it with families these days.
You often see a family at a table in a restaurant, and nobody is talking – too busy texting. It’s kind of sad.
Last summer, I was eating dinner at Applebee’s in Cortland with another writer.
There were five defensive linemen eating at the bar.
I noticed there wasn’t a lot of banter.
Why?
They were all staring at their phones – texting, tweeting, doing whatever.
One new Jets player was accused of “sexting” on his former team. Whatever.
The point is simple – Rex should say something to the guys, like – “We didn’t come up here for you to get to know your phone better, we came up here to get to know your teammates better.”
But overall I like the idea of the Jets taking camp to Cortland.
It’s also good for a local economy in Cortland that has seen better days. There are a lot of poor people in the area of Central New York.
This not only brings some extra excitement to their lives for a few weeks, but it helps the local economy.
“As it has in the past, this summer’s training camp will bring millions of tourist dollars into the Cortland economy,” said SUNY-Cortland President Erik Bitterbaum.
There is also less media. Cortland is four hours from New York City.
The Jets have enough issues with some of their core beat writers. They don’t need extra rabble-rousers.
Now you are going to see negative remarks on Twitter, and in blogs, from some reporters, about the Jets’ decision to go back to Cortland.
Keep one thing in mind – some reporters don’t want to have to travel up there. So there is an agenda behind some of the snide remarks.
But this isn’t about what is best for reporters (or some the veteran players who might complain).
You go where the story takes you.
You don’t dictate where the story takes place.
And the story this summer is taking place in Cortland.
It seems like a very pragmatic decision.
April 23, 2014
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