Thursday Training Camp Whispers

Florham Park – They held their first training camp practice today and Sheldon Richardson’s saga continues. Let’s dig into today’s news . . .

Just a bizarre scene at the Jets today.

Sheldon Richardson addressed the media after practice (about 5), and was very remorseful for about his four-game pot suspension.

But shortly thereafter it came out that Richardson was being charged with resisting arrest and endangering the welfare of a child in O’Fallon, Missouri. The incident happened on July 14. He clocked speeds of 122, 135 and 143 miles per hour in his 2014 Bentley Silver Spur, a $200,000 car, with a 12-year-old in the back seat of the car. He tried to avoid the police by shutting his headlights off. The car smelled of marijuana according to the police report.

What should help Richardson a tad in this case is that the St. Louis Police Department is walking on egg shells since the Ferguson incident. They might go light on him in the wake of that, perhaps not go after him as hard as they might have two years ago.

Now his press conference today is pretty meaningless, and a tad out of context since it was held before this news broke.

Richardson probably knew the charges were filed, but he wasn’t going to volunteer the information to the press.

From what I understand, the Jets weren’t hiding this from us. Supposedly they found out about this the same time we did.

I’m not going to kick this guy when he’s down. He clearly needs to get some help. There is something amiss.

The Jets selection of Leonard Williams with the sixth pick overall is looking better and better, and a case-in-point on why sticking to your value board is always the best way to go . . .

Rookie wide receiver Devin Smith was getting a lot of prime time reps today, basically platooning with Jeremy Kerley in the #3 slot. They clearly have big plans for him this year . . .

Jeff Cumberland hobbled off the practice field with some kind of leg injury. I could be wrong, but to me it looked like his problematic Achilles was acting up . . .

Marcus Gilchrist is a really small safety. He looks like a corner. He’s 198 pounds. That helps him in coverage, but that is a really light weight for safety, and he’s coming off shoulder surgery. Durability could be a concern. The Jets have a very mobile safety combination with Gilchrist and Calvin Pryor.

I’m not going to make a big deal about one training camp practice, but Ryan Fitzpatrick looked a lot better than Geno Smith today. He completed a lot more passes. With his extensive background in Chan Gailey’s offense, he seemed a lot more confident and decisive. He’s much further along in this system and it showed . . .

RB Daryl Richardson looked good today – he has the quickest feet of all the Jets backs, and is the fastest. People say the Jets lack a speed back, a change-of—pace back, but Richardson is that kind of guy . . .

The Jets have the best seating set-up I’ve ever seen at one of their training camps.

They are now longer using those old aluminum, uncomfortable bleachers they had in the past – but stadium seating for 1,400 along their main Florham Park training camp practice field . . .

While Dee Milliner isn’t on the PUP list, watching him today, he is still very limited. They are taking it slow with him. He did some individual drill work with his position, but did nothing in the scrimmage part of practice . . .

July 30, 2015

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