Friday Night Whispers

There was a blockbuster from SNY’s NFL Insider Connor Hughes early this week:

“I know Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall right now have issues with what’s happening under center, and I know they have a lot of issues with the offensive staff,” Hughes said on SNY. “These two players, I know this for a fact, do not believe that they are being put in the best position to have success. Those concerns are mounting and mounting.”

This certainly qualifies as major news. These are two of the Jets’ best offensive players, and two of their best players overall.

But kind of weird timing for this scoop after a game when Hall had two fumbles, losing one.

So it seems a little tone-deaf for those complaints to be coming out now.

But talking to people around the Jets, they made it clear that Hall would never say anything like that to a reporter. It’s not how he’s wired.

Somebody might have said it, but they don’t believe it was Hall.

The same people don’t think Wilson said this stuff either. Maybe somebody close to him did.

But reading the tea leaves, you could see Wilson being a little frustrated with how he is being used.

Part of this is having two #1 receivers, which sounds great on paper and to fantasy football players. However, it doesn’t always play out as planned. And last week. Davante Adams was targeted a team-high 12 times.

No other receiver would likely lead the team in targets if Wilson had a conventional #2, like Allen Lazard, opposite him.

So this trade for Adams seemed like a move to perhaps assuage the Twitter crowd.

The overarching point about some discontent with players like Wilson and Hall, and you can throw in Sauce Gardner, AVT, whomever, is Jets’ young core has been subjected to more disappointing losses and bad seasons than most are used to in their young lives, and it’s clearly denting their souls a tad – there is no way around that.

And the tough part from a salary cap standpoint is that the Jets did not take advantage of this young core while they were on their affordable rookie contracts, and now they are all kind of entering the window for the second deals . . .

Was wondering the other day why Max Mitchell was inactive last week, and Carter Warren was the backup swing tackle. Mitchell has more starting experience than Warren. Warren, forced into action when Morgan Moses hurt his shoulder against Seattle, struggled. I asked Jeff Ulbrich today about that.

“It was just it was kind of a byproduct of the week’s work and who was healthiest and who we thought would just do the best job,” Ulbrich said.

Now Mitchell was not on the injury report last week, but has been wearing a compression sleeve on one of his legs recently, but perhaps that is part of it.

Ulbrich added, “This particular week I’m going to try to get both those guys up.”

I might be wrong, but based on experience, you could make a strong argument that Mitchell is the better back-up swing tackle candidate right now.

But it looks like Moses is going to play, but considering he’s now dealing with shoulder and knee injuries, you better have insurance . . .

Jets rookie cornerback Quantez Stiggers has been wearing a mask this week. He is listed with an illness.

I have no idea if it’s COVID-19 or anything like that, but it’s interesting that you never hear that word uttered by NFL teams anymore.

Either nobody is getting it, or they are just treating it like a cold now. Perhaps NFL teams don’t want to talk about that anymore and cause panic around their teams. This is not a big deal, but it’s kind of interesting that you never hear that word anymore around the NFL . . .

I don’t watch any of those talking head sports debate shows, but sometimes I see their videos pop up on YouTube. Saw one headline for a video on a Rodgers-hating show that said, “Rodgers is in denial.”

Denial about what? Having lousy pass protection, guys not lining up right, having a play-caller calling somebody else’s playbook leading to operational issues?

These Rodgers haters, constantly blaming him for all the Jets’ woes, clearly are not watching the film, that is all I can say.

And if the Jets hire somebody like Mike Vrable, the man they should hire, I can assure you he would want Rodgers back for another next year.

Is he vintage Rodgers? No, but still a very good QB, who you can win with, if the supporting cast does their jobs.

December 6, 2024

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