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Most of the guys on the field . . .
at the Jets rookie minicamp, being held Friday and Saturday at the Jets Atlantic Health Training Complex in Florham Park, New Jersey, were tryout players.
Yes, Jets first-round pick, defensive end Will McDonald, and second-round pick, center Joe Tippmann (pictured above) were there, but they kind of keep the draft picks in bubble wrap during this camp, so they don’t get taken out by some overzealous undrafted free agent or tryout player with their hair on fire, trying to impress the coaches.
Longshot linebacker Chad Cascadden, who made the team in 1995 as the longest of long shots, said he got into fights on purpose to grab the coach’s attention.
But you see some of the players here are tryouts, and you realize how hard it is to latch on with an NFL team.
Former Wisconsin, Notre Dame and XFL QB Jack Coan is here on a tryout basis.
Coan was one of the most highly recruited quarterbacks to come off Long Island in a long-time and played well at the end of the XFL season for San Antonio, and he couldn’t even get a contract, but had to come as a tryout.
You could tell he’s a little more advanced than the kind of quarterbacks you usually see on a tryout basis, throwing a back shoulder throw to a receiver down the left sideline, throwing him open. This was a pretty advanced throw.
There is an offensive tackle here named Jazston Turnetine, who started at South Carolina and Florida State. The 6-7, 336 pounder is a tryout, not a signed player.
Once again, hard league to get a contract.
For most of the tryouts in this camp, this will be the only time they step foot on an NFL field. They can tell their kids and grandkids, they were in camp with the Jets.
There are always some local guys who get to realize this dream. There was a player from Perth Amboy, Marcus Valdez, a defensive end from Boston College, a 6-0, 256-pound defensive lineman. You don’t see a lot of those in the NFL. It could be hard to find him a position in the NFL, but the Don Bosco graduate is here. Good for him.
There was a quick receiver out of Eastern Michigan named Hassan Beydoun from Dearborn, Michigan, Robert Saleh’s hometown.
“It’s not like I’m signed but it is an opportunity and that is all I can ask for right now,” Beydoun told CBS News in Detroit. “Just like little practices, meetings, just show what I can do and if I impress them hopefully I can stick around.”
I asked Saleh about having player from Dearborn in camp.
“Hometown kid,” Saleh said. “Let’s see if he can make it.”
Beydoun caught a TD pass in practice.
There were two tryouts from the same small school in San Antonio, the University of the Incarnate Word, quarterback Lindsey Scott and running back Marcus Cooper. Scott threw 60 touchdowns this past year. That is right 60, playing under head coach G.J. Kinne, who himself was a tryout QB with the Jets in 2012. Scott was so dominant at UIC, he helped Kinne land the Texas State job.
There was a tryout offensive lineman from Wake Forest named Loic Nya, who is from Cameroon.
Most of these guys will likely never play for an NFL team.
But for some of them, practicing for three days with an NFL team, and wearing an NFL uniform, will be a memory they will always cherish.
May 5, 2023
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