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Florham Park – Time for a heaping helping of Dan’s Website Whispers exclusively for Jets Confidential Premium subscribers. Let’s go . . .
Jets signal-caller Ryan Fitzpatrick is in a good place right now.
There are some quarterbacks, who were pedestrian in their 20’s, who have the lightbulb come on in their 30’s.
All that experience, at perhaps the most mentally demanding position in all of sports, can take you to a better place later in your career.
You have seen so much at a position where experience matters.
Rich Gannon, Jim Plunkett, Vinnie Testaverde, a few names to consider – guys that bounced around, but then had a renaissance in their 30’s.
I think Fitzpatrick can be that kind of guy. I’m not making any Super Bowl predictions, I’m just saying he can do some good things for the 2015 Jets, especially working under offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, in a system he’s very comfortable in.
“One of the things with me, is knowing my strengths and weaknesses and making sure that we’re playing to my strengths,” Fitzpatrick said.
Gailey will do that . . .
The energy of Jets special team’s coach Bobby April is pretty amazing. The Rajun Cajun is 62 going on 32. He runs around the field like the Energizer Bunny.
“We need a little more exuberance to be out here on this beautiful day,” he yelled to his troops early in practice.
This guy was a great hire by Todd Bowles. He’s a special team’s guru . . .
During the special team’s section of practice, I saw Todd Bowles having a chat with Brandon Marshall on the sideline across from where the media was stationed.
This was clearly the chat that Bowles referred to in his press conference today. It was about what Marshall said on Showtime yesterday about the NFL being racist, vis-a-vis Tom Brady not being punished more because he’s white.
“There are a lot of players out there that believe that white players, specifically at the quarterback position, are treated differently,” Marshall said.
It’s strange to apply that thinking to Brady because if you want to play the race card, it wasn’t the NFL that was racist, it was the judiciary.
The NFL suspended Brady for four games for “Deflate-gate” and a judge overturned it.
But Bowles did a smart thing. He called Marshall out publicly for his comments after the receiver’s first Showtime episode.
“He does have to be smarter,” Bowles said. “He can express his opinion outside, I have no problem with it. But I’d just like him to be smarter going forward that’s all. In terms of how he says things. You can say things and they come out a different way than what you mean it. Just got to be smarter that way.”
This was a great move by Bowles – nipping this in the bud early. Marshall is going to do this show all season. Now he’s going to think long and hard about what he says. He’ll probably be more like Phil Simms from this point in – a political animal.
September 9, 2015
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