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This is all that matters right now . . .
The theme of today’s three Zoom press conferences from Jets camp was clearly “veteran leadership.”
The three guys who spoke were linebacker C.J. Mosley, defensive end Carl Lawson and tight end C.J. Uzomah.
Mosley was the Jets’ player leader last year, Lawson was going to be before he suffered a season-ending injury in training camp, and Uzomah, was one of the leaders of the Cincinnati Bengals team last year that went to the Super Bowl.
And there were a lot of things asked of these players, whether it was asking Uzomah about Zach Wilson, who will be throwing to him, or Lawson being asked about the team’s additions on the defensive line.
Uzomah was also asked if there could be a parallel between last year’s Bengals taking a quantum leap from the year before and going to the Super Bowl, and this year’s Jets.
He borrowed a page of Nick Saban’s process thinking theory. Well, he probably didn’t borrow it from Saban, since Uzomah went to Auburn, and Saban coaches at Alabama.
And Saban didn’t invent it.
But “process thinking” is not looking too far ahead, and just focusing the current job at hand, and right now, for NFL players, that is getting in great shape in the off-season conditioning programs, learning the playbook, and improving technique, things of that nature.
“The sky’s the limit for this team as long as we mentally stay the course with what we are implementing right now – that’s brick-by-brick building each day – stacking our workload – making sure we get marginally better each day and working on the things our coaches are telling us to work on,” said C.J. Uzomah.
Bingo. That is it.
If you are a process thinker, all that matters is what you are working on now to improve.
Uzomah was asked about how talented Wilson is.
That is all fine and dandy, but the young quarterback has a lot to work on this spring, and hyping his talent, that can only be a distraction.
Wilson needs to improve his accuracy. Wilson needs to improve his reading of defenses. Wilson needs to get more comfortable in the playbook. Wilson needs to improve his footwork and mechanics.
And Wilson knows he has a lot to work on, so the best thing for Wilson now is “process thinking” and not focusing on anything else aside from getting better.
This also applies to the team’s rookie class, which includes three first-round picks. People can hype them on Twitter, but man do they have a lot of work to do, so it’s best to ignore the hype, roll your collective sleeves up, and work your collective tails off.
People tweet that so-and-so is looking good in spring practices.
What does that even mean?
You looked good running a route against air with no pads on?
That doesn’t mean a darn thing.
And Uzomah showed very good leadership with his statement in his presser today on what the players need to focus on right now.
Everything else is just noise.
May 11, 2022
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