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He let the cat out of the bag, but it wasn’t hard for the cat to escape.
The Jets are clearly using this season to develop young players, and if they win games along the way, that’s gravy.
Jets defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich was asked this week about rookie linebacker Jamien Sherwood’s issues with shedding blocks.
“You’re seeing a young guy learning his way,” said Ulbrich. “I think we’re all committed to the fact that, it goes back to the corners, it goes back to all these young guys that we’re playing. The byproduct of playing them will be better players as we go.”
Based on what Ulbrich said, it’s clear the Jets are using this season as a tool to develop young players with an eye on benefitting from it down the road . . .
Watching the Jets’ practices the last couple of days, you see a very passionate team, a hard-working team, with great spirit and morale. The issues here have nothing to do with attitude, toughness, character and work ethic. It’s about what we wrote above – using the year as a petri dish to develop young players, and clearly a lot of mental and physical errors are occurring on game day. That is the bottom line . . .
Recently, the Jets put defensive end Ronald Blair on the practice squad injured reserve. This poor guy, who is a very good player, just can’t stay healthy. He blew out his knee with the 49ers in 2019, and then had a setback in 2020, and missed the entire 2020 season. He signed with the Jets in the off-season, but hasn’t played a game for them yet due to injuries.
He was seen at practice today with a medical sleeve on his left leg. His surgical knee is on the right leg.
At what point do they pull the plug on an injury-prone player who never played a game for them? They will probably give him plenty of time. Robert Saleh loves this player.
In 2019, when they were both in San Francisco, Saleh said: “If you like winning, you like Ronnie Blair. If you don’t like winning, you don’t like him. I love him to death. He can do no wrong in my book.” . . .
Marcus Maye is out the next 3-4 weeks with an ankle injury, and his agent shot his mouth off again, or we should say, shot his finger off again – on Twitter.
After NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport announced the Maye injury on Twitter, the agent tweeted, “Should be back fully healthy just before the trade deadline.”
Maye is a wonderful guy and a solid player, but this agent acts like he’s representing Ed Reed.
The Jets reportedly offered Maye in the $9 million-a-year, like the Buffalo safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde, and San Francisco’s Jimmie Ward. Some would say that is a fair offer because his talent is commensurate with those player. The player and agent would disagree. He’s playing on the franchise tag this year for $10.5 million.
Maybe the agent is on to something. If he’s so disgruntled, if they get a good offer at the trade deadline, maybe trade him. He’s an okay player, but might not be worth the aggravation his agent his causing, acting like he’s representing Troy Polamalu
October 1, 2021
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