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Houston – Are you ready for some football? Dan looks ahead to the Jets-Houston Monday Night Football preseason contest, and some guys to keep an eye on . . .
Mark Brunell (finger injury) isn’t going to play against Houston, so you are going to see a heavy dose of Greg McElroy, and prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
He’s smart, poised and has good field vision.
McElroy is the kind of prospect that could turn into a Kevin Kolb-type for the Jets, where he plays well in a few preseasons, and perhaps at some point down the road in the regular season (probably after this year, when Brunell could retire), and then the Jets can trade him for a premium draft pick. Another analogy would be Green Bay’s Matt Flynn, who will likely be traded for a high pick in the near future.
Or he could be a quality backup for a long-time.
You will likely come away from the Jets-Houston game saying, “This guy is pretty good.”
Keep an eye on his arm strength. That is one area of his game that might have hurt him in the draft, but he thinks the criticism is overblown . . .
Another guy who is likely to impress on Monday night is pass rusher Jamaal Westerman. He’s had a superb camp. Jamaal reported in great shape, and the Jets backup tackles haven’t been able to block him. It really looks like he’s poised for a break-out year . . .
Ropati Pitiotua has been almost unblockable in camp. The defensive end is going to play a lot in Houston. Keep an eye on him as well. It’s hard to miss him at 6-8, 320 . . .
It will be interesting to see what safety Byron Landor can do in a game setting. The undrafted free agent has been one of the surprises of camp so far. Now he needs to show it when the bright lights are on. This should be an exciting game for him, not only because it’s his first NFL contest, but because he should have a lot of people at the game. He went to Baylor, and he’s from Lake Charles, LA., not far from Houston . . .
Speaking of local angles, expect to see a large dose of Jeremy Kerley, another guy who will have a large contingent at the game; he is from the Austin-area, a couple of hours from Houston.
Since Plaxico is out, and the Jets don’t want to overplay Derrick Mason and Santonio, Kerley could play two or three quarterbacks . . .
While on the local theme, another Houston-area player having a good camp is guard Chris Stewart. He’s from the Houston superb of Klein.
He’s making himself very hard to cut. He has great size (6-5, 331), and you can tell that he learned very good technique under Charlie Weis’ staff, which ran a pro offense at Notre Dame. He’s also very smart (in law school) and has picked up the system fast.
Expect him to have a big crowd in the stands as well . . .
Clearly Jerricho Cotchery wasn’t a big fan of Rex’s program. He signed with Pittsburgh on Friday.
“After my visit here, I really believed this was the place for me,” Cotchery said Sunday after his first practice with his new team. “This was the type of atmosphere that I needed to be in now
Cotchery is a low-key humble Alabama-native, and Rex’s braggadocio style clearly started to grate on him . . .
