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Woody Johnson thinks the Jets can mend the relationship between Santonio Holmes and Mark Sanchez. Perhaps, but it’s not going to be easy. Let’s take a look.
“I’m confident that it can be (mended),” Johnson said. “They won a lot of games together and one is good for the other. Santonio makes the quarterback a lot better and vice versa. So, they have a good reason to iron this thing out and I think they can do it.”
But Holmes clearly doesn’t agree with Woody’s theory, andobviously doesn’t think Sanchez is good for him
Like I mentioned in my blog this morning, Holmes issues with Sanchez are related to football, it’s not a personalty conflict. He was just fed up with Mark’s play. So if Mark’s play doesn’t improve, neither will this relationship.
Remember when a New York Times reporter, doing a feature on Sanchez, asked Holmes for his thoughts on the quarterback, and the receiver said, “you don’t want to know.”
Woody was asked if he will speak to Holmes and Sanchez in the near future.
“I’ll talk to them,” Johnson said. “I’ll probably see the players as they come and go. Yes, but I’d like to talk to, particularly, Mark.”
You notice he said he’d “like to talk to, particularly, Mark.”
I don’t blame him for wanting to talk to Mark more than Santonio.
Because Holmes is one of those guys that you really can’t reason with. Why do you think Pittsburgh dumped him?
Do you really think Woody is going to have a heart-to-heart talk with Santonio Holmes? Not likely. They’ll talk, but more small talk, than the owner getting on him.
Johnson said that Holmes will be back in 2012, and added, “He may be one of the best players we’ve ever had here. I think you can look at his talent level and he’s extraordinarily talented.”
The Steelers agree with Woody’s assessment of Holmes talent, but that isn’t the issue here or in Pittsburgh.
“Clearly, Santonio is a very talented football players,” Steelers president Art Rooney said after he traded Holmes to the Jets. “But his multiple violations of league policies and the additional off-the-field problems led us to conclude it would be in the best interest of the organization to part ways.”
In the latest issue of Jets Confidential, writer John DeGiovanni did a feature on all of Holmes issues through the years, going back to high school and there are a lot of them.
From selling drugs in high school to getting paid by an agent at Ohio State; to getting arrested twice before his first Steelers training camp to being arrested on South Beach; to being accused of choking the mother of his three children; to the Pittsburgh police finding pot in his car; to being accused to throwing a glass at a woman at an Orlando bar, causing a cut eye.
You get the point.
To be blunt, it’s astonishing that the Jets football brass would give somebody, with this track record, $23.5 in guaranteed money.
Woody, good luck trying to change Holmes – it won’t be easy.
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