In the past, the Jets have had myriad tryout players at their rookie minicamp.
These players, mostly undrafted college free agents, come to the rookie minicamp on a tryout basis, hoping to get signed.
An example of a player who got signed from one of these tryouts is North Carolina Central cornerback/kick returner, Brandon Codrington, who the Jets signed after the rookie minicamp camp last year. He ended up getting traded to Buffalo in August and is now the Bills’ kick returner.
In the past, the Jets would have around 30-40 tryout players at the rookie minicamp.
This year, they only had 12.
And because they only had 12, this enabled position coaches to spend more time giving draft picks and priority free agents one-on-one attention.
Like cornerback coach Dre Bly spending a lot of extra time with third-round pick, cornerback Azareye’h Thomas, and nickel back coach Alonso Escalante, essentially being attached at the hip with priority undrafted free agent nickel back, Jordan Clark.
While tryouts can be nice feel-good stories, sometimes they create such a crowded practice field that perhaps the draft picks and UDFAs don’t get the attention they need.
Aside from rookie minicamp auditions, there are plenty of other ways to try out players. You can bring tryouts to your facility anytime and put them through the paces.
Longshot stories are great, but with Aaron Glenn and his staff in the first year of their program, maybe it was best not to overload the practice field with players, and just make sure a smaller group of rookies, like the draft picks and priority UDFAs, got the lion’s share of the teaching.
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