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This was a tough loss for the Jets . . .
ESPN’s Adam Schefter announced on Thursday that safety Chuck Clark to a season-ending torn ACL during practice earlier this month.
On March 15, the Jets traded a 2024 seventh-round to Baltimore to acquire Clark, who asked for a trade last year after the Ravens drafted Notre Dame safety Kyle Hamilton in the first round of the 2022 draft.
They obviously didn’t honor Clark’s request immediately because he played last year for the Ravens, but they did after the season.
The irony is that the Jets thought they were acquiring an Ironman.
In Baltimore, Clark didn’t miss a start the last three years and hasn’t missed a game in five seasons.
That is remarkable considering safety is such a physically taxing position with a high attrition rate.
How many safety don’t miss a start for three straight seasons?
Look at the injury nightmare Jamal Adams has had in Seattle.
So they bring in Clark, who has an amazing history of availability, and he goes down with a torn ACL in June.
It just shows you, in the sport of football, anybody can go down at any time, regardless of their history.
The injury didn’t seem to happen on a day the media was at OTAs.
It wasn’t one of these things where the media saw him going down and being attended to on the field.
So it either happened in an open practice to the media, but wasn’t one of those obvious plays where a guy is seriously hurt, or it happened during a practice not open to the media.
This is a tough blow for the Jets.
Clark is a pro’s pro.
He’s tough as boot leather and very instinctive. He also gets high marks for character and work ethic. He’s a great locker room guy.
And he could have been a good partner for Jordan Whitehead, who is as tough as they come in run supporter and as a hitter in coverage, but sometimes is a tick late reacting in coverage. Remember, his former team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, would sometimes take Whitehead out on passing downs.
Remember, Whitehead felt disrespected by this and made that clear after signing with the Jets.
“I’m a team player, but I was frustrated,” Whitehead said in June 2022. “I would come out on third down, sometimes. I just felt like I was making enough plays, and I was being a leader on the team. It just felt like I should have been in the game. … I’m a team player, and it’s a team-first mentality, but I definitely was frustrated. I think anybody would be.”
But Tampa Bay coaches clearly had their rationale for doing this, and last year with the Jets, there were some plays in coverage Whitehead would want back. He seemed to be implicated in a couple of TD passes in the Jets 2022 season open against Baltimore, and then you had the Detroit tight end sneak off the line on fourth-and-one for a game-winning TD pass.
The point is Whitehead needs a strong partner, and Clark could have been that guy.
We will see what Adrian Amos can do, but after an entire off-season of Whitehead and Clark working together, Whitehead and Amos have a lot of work to do to get on the same page.
June 23, 2023
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