On May 8, ESPN’s Rich Cimini reported the Jets moved on from three members of their athletic care and performance department.
Gone are Brad DeWeese, Robert Sausaman and Matt Sams. DeWeese headed the department, and Sausaman and Sams were his top lieutenants.
On May 21, at a press conference during OTAs, Jets coach Robert Saleh was asked what went into the decision to move on from the three men.
“Just try to change it up, I guess,” Saleh said. “It was nothing performance-related. Thought they all did a really nice job, but there’s certain things that we feel like we need to improve on and certain things that we felt like we could do as our current staff exists.”
The Jets lost three key players last year to torn Achilles tendon injuries – QB Aaron Rodgers, guard Alijah Vera-Tucker and nose tackle Al Woods. It’s hard for conditioning coaches to prevent those kinds of injuries, just like many other football injuries, like torn ACLs, rotator cuffs and broken bones. It’s a very violent sport.
Perhaps Saleh said the quiet part out loud at the end of the quote, when he said, “certain things that we felt like we could do as our current staff exists.”
In other words, perhaps the powers that be felt that they were a tad overstaffed in that department and could get by with fewer people.
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