Trapped

New Jersey – While some are trying to run him out of town, he still seems to be in the Jets’ plans.

Jets GM Mike Maccagnan had a conference call today with reporters. He was asked about Dee Milliner.

“You can never have enough good corners,” Maccagnan said. “I’m very excited about not only the players we’ve acquired but about the players with Dee, and actually Dexter McDougle also, coming back from their injuries to really make that position an exceptionally strong position on our team.”

This isn’t just GM speak. You need five or six good corners. Maybe even seven. If Milliner and McDougle can get healthy, this could be a heck of a cornerback situation. Darrelle Revis, Antonio Cromartie, Buster Skrine, Dee Milliner, Dexter McDougle and Darrin Walls. That is potentially an excellent group.

And as we have mentioned many times, cornerback is a position with a high-injury rate. Revis and Cromartie have both blown out knees. Cromartie has had hip issues. Obviously Milliner and McDougle have been banged up. Walls missed some time last year.

The Giants put five corners on IR last year.

Cornerbacks gets banged-up. A lot. It’s the nature of the position.

After this answer from Maccagnan, he was asked a trap question. Trap questions are very common around here. And they wonder why the locker room is almost empty when we go in there.

Q)Will Milliner will be on the opening day roster?

“I would say this, I wouldn’t want to kind of get into projecting or a guess, but I would say simply we’re very excited about Dee coming off of his injury and, again, making that position exceptionally deep and talented and helping our team win,” Maccagnan said. “But I don’t want to get into that, there’s so much time that has to go by here. I don’t really want to go down that road. I’m just focused on getting Dee back on the field and, again, making that position extremely competitive and very talented.”

I guess he fell for the trap.

One beat writer tweeted following after the presser, “Takeaways from Maccagnan conference call–Osi didn’t have official visit, won’t guarantee Milliner on opening-day roster.”

This is Kabuki Theater.

What is the point of this?

Milliner is rehabbing a torn achilles, and the writer wanted the GM to guarantee that he will be on the open day roster?

Because the writer got what he wanted, an sexy angle – “GM won’t guarantee roster spot to Miller,” a team PR official called writers to clarify the matter.

The PR guy, on behalf on the GM, clarified (not that they needed to) what Maccagnan was saying.

All Maccagnan was trying to say, according to the official, was that he didn’t want to put pressure on Milliner to be ready for a certain date. He didn’t want to do that to him mentally. He wants Milliner to focus on getting to 100 percent, and that is it.

I’m not going to lie, I’m getting really tired of these trap questions. It poisons the well between writers and who they cover.

Look, I’m not against tough questions, but trap questions are bad news as far as I’m concerned.

I remember last year when a beat writer asked Rex, after he named Geno the starter for a particular game, “Will Geno finish the game?”

C’mon man.

March 18, 2015

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