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I’m on YouTube a lot, and as we all know, they put videos on your feed based on algorithms.
So these two videos popped up on my screen today:
“Cade Klubnik is turning heads at Jets rookie minicamp.”
“Cade Klubnik impressing so far.”
Absurd.
What the hell is this based on, a rookie camp, where you got a bunch of young guys, who hardly know anything about the playbook yet, in practice with no little contract and no tackling. If you take anybody to the ground, you get yelled at
There is no darn way an observer of a rookie mincamp, a couple of weeks after the draft, can discern who looks good or bad.
Clearly, street free agents, veteran offensive tackle Landon Young, and rookie linebacker Jaden Keller, caught the attention of Aaron Glenn and Darren Mougey, as they were signed after camp tryouts.
But as an observer, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you they looked good in a rookie minicamp practice with little contact and no tackling. Would not know what to look for in this setting.
Given the framework for what Young and Keller were asked to do, they clearly looked good to the decision-makers.
I would say the biggest thing with Young was showing he was healthy after spending last year with the New Orleans Saints on injured reserve with a serious ankle injury. The Jets have plenty of film from his five years with the Saints. They just had to see how the ankle was.
With Keller, perhaps it was his speed, and how he picked things up mentally, and the fact that the Jets had not addressed one of their biggest needs in free agency and the draft, for a coverage linebacker. He’s a pretty good coverage linebacker.
But to say that Klubnik looked good is Kabuki Theatre.
It’s throwing raw meat to the fans.
What is it based on – a couple of throws that looked nice to observers. Is that how you evaluate a QB?
I saw him underthrow Omar Cooper on the first day on a pass downfield. The WR had to come back for the pass, and caught it, but my first thought watching the play was they had never played together, so of course they weren’t totally on the same page.
Look, I don’t want people to think, based on what was written yesterday, there is an agenda against Klubnik.
Not at all.
He was a smart fourth-round pick by Gang Green, a guy with a lot of potential and a big upside. That is the kind of pick you make in the fourth round, somebody who might need some work, but has moldable traits. Klubnik fits that template perfectly.
But there is no freaking way that anybody in the media could have determined that he looked good in a rookie minicamp with a bunch of young guys swimming out there.
That is clickbait nonsense
And what is unfortunate in the modern news cycle is that people, who are not at practice. often do videos on half-baked practice takes, of those who are there, and take their word like it’s the gospel.
That is quite a leap of faith to buy into observations from football practice of observers who don’t even know what the players are being asked to do at teaching camp, like the rookie minicamp.
This camp was not about style points, but more about starting the learning process from the draft picks and priority UDFAs, and of course taking a look-see at some players there for a tryout.
Did Klubnik look good?
I will leave that to Frank Reich and Bill Musgrave, and we weren’t given access to the OC and QB coach after the camp.
But I doubt either one of these guys would be too keen on accessing Klubnik after just two days on the practice field.
OMG.
What are we doing here?
Klubnik looked good in the rookie minicamp?
Spare me.
May 13, 2026
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