Official 2022 Jets Training Camp

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

Brook! · Aug 25, 2022

Noam said: ↑

Pretty great article regarding the QB relationships and dynamics on the Jets. Definitely worth a read.

https://theathletic.com/3525360/2022/08/22/jets-qb-room-zach-wilson-joe-flacco-mike-white/
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Hey Noam. This has a paywall. Do you mind copy and pasting here?

Noam · Aug 25, 2022

Brook! said: ↑

Hey Noam. This has a paywall. Do you mind copy and pasting here?
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Sure. here is Part 1

It is very long and will require a few parts. Give me a few minutes as I am supposed to be doing work while I am pretending to work.

Robert Saleh sits in his office — call it the Control Room — and watches the monitor. As each position group meets, Saleh supervises, like a security guard at the mall. But Saleh has more control than Paul Blart.

Saleh can plug in to any of the position meetings — and he can hear everything being said, in every room, with a click of the mouse. The quarterback room is at the top of his playlist. That’s understandable — if the Jets are going to get where Saleh wants to take them, out of irrelevance, it’s going to start in that room, with Zach Wilson. Through a few weeks of training camp, Saleh likes what he’s hearing.

At the end of a QB session, offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur (who leads the operation) and quarterbacks coach Rob Calabrese head to Saleh’s office. They knock on his office door, but he still hears sounds coming from the QB room. The Jets head coach figures that when a meeting ends, everyone leaves. But when LaFleur and Calabrese walk into his office, Saleh still hears chatter coming from his monitor, the sounds of Wilson, Joe Flacco and Mike White conversing. He scrambles to hit the mute button.

“It’s funny, (sometimes) the conversation is still going and Rob or Mike might walk into my office, and I’m like, ‘What’re you doing in here?’” Saleh said. “And they’re (the quarterbacks) still in there talking, so I turn it off because I don’t want to hear their conversation. They are a very close-knit group. They ask each other everything. They talk about everything — football, life, trouble, everything.”

That happens when they leave the facility, too. In White’s experience, a group text between quarterbacks dies when the season ends. He expected that at the end of last season when only one of them (Wilson) was under contract for 2022. White has been in a few different QB rooms: In 2019 with Dak Prescott, Cooper Rush and the Cowboys. And the revolving door of Jets quarterbacks in 2019: Sam Darnold, Luke Falk, David Fales and Trevor Siemian. This one is different, he said.

This offseason, White’s phone kept vibrating during the playoffs. It was often texts from Wilson, reacting to the games like any fan of football, marveling at moments like the wild Chiefs-Bills overtime playoff game that had the NFL world buzzing. The texts continued into the offseason, about vacation. Flacco texted the group when he re-signed to a one-year deal in March. White too.

And then they kept texting, about football, fatherhood — and trying to make Flacco laugh.

“Joe is the old man in the group,” White told The Athletic, “but when you get an ‘lol’ out of Joe, that’s when you know you said something really funny.”

Wilson kept the group updated — Calabrese and LaFleur too — when he was in Los Angeles, getting his injured knee scoped last week. Wilson is expected to miss a few weeks after suffering a bone bruise and meniscus tear to his right knee against the Eagles on Aug. 12 — The Athletic reported a four-to-six-week timeline to return — and so now Wilson will be spending most of his time in that QB meeting room, taking “mental reps”, watching film and staying involved. He’ll be around a tight-knit group of quarterbacks and coaches working together to keep him ready for when he returns, all while carrying on without him.

“The show goes on,” LaFleur said.

Wilson has done this before, as a rookie last year when he missed four games with a sprained PCL. But the group wasn’t as close back then. Flacco had just been acquired in a trade with the Eagles in Week 8, Calabrese was thrust into a more prominent role in the room right before training camp when Greg Knapp passed away, and LaFleur was in his first year as a play caller. White was still an unknown and had yet to throw a pass in the NFL. Now, he has people affectionately yelling his name in fast food drive-thru lanes.

Everyone knows each other now.
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Noam · Aug 25, 2022

Part 2

“That’s the main reason why I wanted to come back,” White said. “We do have a really good dynamic in there and every opinion matters. We work off each other well. You don’t have to spend time learning each other. Learning how your OC thinks, or how your QB coach thinks. When we came back it was like no time was lost.”

Said Calabrese: “It’s a special room.”

Here is an inside look at the Jets’ “special” QB room: The people, the personalities, what they do — and what they can do.

Chris Streveler signed with the Jets just before training camp, an extra thrower for practice. A 27-year-old football vagabond, Streveler started his career in the CFL and has been in quarterback rooms with Kyler Murray and Colt McCoy, Lamar Jackson and Tua Tagovailoa. He used to spend hours after Cardinals practice watching film with McCoy. He didn’t know Wilson, or Flacco, or White, or LaFleur, or Calabrese, before his first day in Florham Park.

One thing Streveler noticed right away: Everyone is working together to help Wilson.

“I did notice from Day 1 just the comfort level. They’ve all been together, so we just have conversations about anything in that room,” Streveler said. “There’s a lot of teaching going on with Zach, back and forth with Mike and Rob, and then Joe is a veteran so he’ll jump into those conversations.” LaFleur will often turn to Flacco, Streveler said, and ask him what he thinks. White and Streveler chime in, too.

“Everyone has a voice in that room,” Streveler said.

The conversation often makes its way to fatherhood. White, Flacco and Calabrese share war stories about raising their kids — White’s twins just turned one — and Wilson, 23 and single, doesn’t have much to contribute on that topic.

“Zach will be the odd man out like: ‘Well, I went to the movies yesterday,” White said, laughing. “Zach is definitely the — I don’t want to say little kid, but he’s the young one so he’s experiencing life for the first time.”

For Wilson and the Jets, it’s all hands on deck, players and coaches. It needs to be that way. The Jets picked him second overall last year out of BYU, hoping they finally unearthed their franchise savior, the quarterback to lead them out of the doldrums they’ve experienced for the past decade. Wilson looked ready to take a second-year leap during training camp, stringing together a handful of impressive practices in a row before the preseason opener against the Eagles. His teammates had raved about his progress, pointing to a rising confidence and more assertive leadership. He gathered his offensive weapons (and Flacco) for a team bonding trip in Idaho this offseason. He’s known to pull teammates aside — like rookie cornerback Sauce Gardner — after practice to trade notes, too.

Wilson is well-liked throughout the building, and higher-ups were impressed with how handled some unwanted off-the-field attention just before training camp started (by ignoring it). And most people — both in Florham Park and around the league — agree that Wilson’s potential is significant.

Then Wilson went and sailed a pass over wide receiver Garrett Wilson’s head and threw an interception on his first drive against the Eagles in the preseason opener. On the next drive, he injured his knee on a scramble when, his coaches have admitted, he should’ve run out of bounds instead of trying to gain more yards. “It’s a hard lesson,” Calabrese said. “Zach had to learn the hard way. We need him out there. That rep right there, it’s going to flash back in his mind and the next time it pops up, he’ll get down and protect himself.”
Zach Wilson is helped off the field after injuring his knee against the Eagles earlier this month. (Eric Hartline / USA Today)

So, Wilson is missing valuable practice time, a chance to build on-field chemistry in an offense full of new faces. There are new starters at four of five offensive line spots, at tight end and the Jets are incorporating a new running back (Breece Hall) and wide receiver (Garrett Wilson) too. Wilson spent the joint practices with the Falcons on Friday and Saturday driving around a cart, a spectator, gingerly walking into the facility at the end of the day.
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Noam · Aug 25, 2022

Part 3

Most people — inside the building and around the league — agree on Wilson’s tantalizing skill set. But questions remain if he can put it all together — he didn’t answer them as a rookie, when he was one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL by most metrics. He threw nine touchdowns and turned the ball over 12 times (11 interceptions) in 13 games, completing just 55.6 percent of his passes. Football Outsiders had him graded as the worst of 34 quarterbacks to throw at least 200 passes. Pro Football Focus had him 27th of 30 with at least 400 dropbacks.

The Athletic’s Austin Mock has an NFL projection model which simulates the season 100,000 times, game-by-game. He plugged in the Jets to see how the season might play out if Flacco has to start a few games and Wilson started the rest, versus if Wilson started all 17.

The result: Mock’s model had the Jets winning an average of 4.7 games with Wilson as the starter for all 17 games, with a 1.2 percent chance to make the playoffs. If Flacco started the first two games, and Wilson the final 15, that bumped up slightly to 4.8 wins. The model, Mock said, projects Flacco as the better option — and Wilson as the worst starting quarterback in the NFL.

Wilson, clearly, still has a lot to prove — and there is a train of thought that LaFleur might have an easier time running his complex offense with Flacco at the helm rather than Wilson. Last season, the Jets offense was more effective with Flacco and White — and Wilson possibly missing Week 1 (or more) will provide another opportunity for that narrative to carry weight. When he started, the Jets averaged 16.3 points per game. When he didn’t, they averaged 24.5.

“Like any young guy he’s a work in progress,” an NFC scout told The Athletic, speaking on the condition of anonymity to allow him to speak freely about another team’s players. “I think for that coaching staff, the challenge is finding the right balance of what can be asked out of him. How do you maximize the talent while putting restraints on so he doesn’t turn into what we’ve seen with Carson Wentz? I can see that very easily happening with Zach Wilson.”

“With Wilson, you can just tell he doesn’t process everything yet,” the scout continued. “There are things they don’t have stats for — you see interceptions, those are inaccurate balls. That’s easy to spot. But what they don’t have stats for are throws that were a little off schedule but still complete, so what should’ve been a 20-yard gain is now a 12-yard gain. Coaches see that as a minus-8 play, they don’t see that as a plus-12.

“There’s those, and then also throws that should be made but are not attempted. Those don’t show up on TV, you can’t criticize guys easily for it, but the coaches probably hate that more than the interceptions. I think with Wilson, he’s still trying to find the right balance of where all that is and the timing is not quite sharp yet. That offense is a very, very timing-oriented offense — and his timing is off.”

The scout had a caveat: “To be clear, it’s LaFleur’s job, Saleh’s job, and everyone’s job to fix that,” he said. “Wilson is not the first young guy that doesn’t have innate timing in his second season. It’s on them to find that balance and figure it out.”

That will wait until Wilson returns.

Until then, it’s Flacco.

The day before Wilson injured his knee, C.J. Uzomah sat down with Flacco. The conversation went on for an hour.

“We talked about ball, we talked about life, we got to know each other more,” Uzomah said. “I always say this: Joe is the funniest person on the team, just because he’s carefree.”

Flacco has unwittingly become a father figure in the Jets’ locker room. The Jets signed left tackle Duane Brown recently, one of only seven players remaining from the 2008 draft class on NFL rosters. Another: Flacco, picked by the Ravens. He’s five years older than Calabrese, two older than LaFleur. And when Flacco started his career, Wilson was 9 and Calabrese was graduating high school.

He’s been around long enough to tell stories about what it was like to play with Ray Lewis, who retired 10 seasons ago — “I’ll never forget the first time I touched his shoulder,” Flacco said. “It was like the hardest surface I’ve ever touched in my life.”

He has 176 career starts — and a Super Bowl win — to his name. Some of his teammates can’t even believe they’re playing with Flacco, who wasn’t exactly a Lewis-level star, even at his best.
Joe Flacco and Zach Wilson talk on the sideline during a November game last season. (Brad Penner / USA Today)

“I watched him all my life,’’ Jets wide receiver Elijah Moore said. “When he got here (in 2021), I was amazed that it was him. Last year before some of the games, he’d … share some of his stories. You hear some of the guys on the sideline saying like, ‘That’s Joe Flacco. He’s a legend.’ All of us were born in 2000, so we’re young.

“Man, he’s a great dude — and still a great player.”

Even when his career started nearly 15 years ago, Flacco said he was confident enough to believe that he’d be still playing after his 37th birthday — but maybe never envisioned himself as the elder statesman, the leader everyone turned to. He’s admitted to a lack of desire to mentor young quarterbacks, both here and in Baltimore, and yet remains one of the most popular figures in the Jets locker room — and Wilson turns to him for advice anyway.
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Noam · Aug 25, 2022

Part 4

In the QB room, Flacco “is the father”, White said.

“I don’t view myself as an old person,” Flacco said, “but every now and then when these guys come up to you and say something to you, I’m like, ‘Oh, OK you think I’m like 50 years old, I got it …

“I feel like I’m like a Dad that is easy to pick on, and they like laughing at me because of that so I embrace it.”

When the Jets brought him back last season — he started four games for New York in 2020, losing all four — and then again this offseason, they didn’t envision that he’d be their Week 1 starter in 2022, against his old team no less. That wasn’t the plan. But the Jets also brought Flacco back precisely for this reason — so they wouldn’t panic if/when Wilson got hurt, like he did when his knee buckled in Philadelphia on a non-contact injury.

It’s not just talk, either — Saleh, LaFleur, Calabrese and Jets players all believe Flacco can handle this task in front of him. He’s been on fire in practice since Wilson went down, his first reps with the starters. He completed 14-of-17 passes in 11-on-11 drills on Tuesday and outplayed Falcons quarterback Marcus Mariota in joint practices with Atlanta on Friday and Saturday. His arm strength hasn’t lagged with age, and he’s on point with most of his passes — even if his mobility still resembles more tortoise than hare.

“There’s definitely a difference” in the way Zach Wilson and Flacco throw passes, rookie wide receiver Garrett Wilson said. “It’s a lot of experience with Flacco. … He takes some pace off, can put pace on the ball. He kind of does a good job of making the passes receiver friendly, that’s the best way I could put it into words. They’re pretty easy to catch. He’ll take something off the ball when you’re running a slant route, versus an out route, he’ll put some zip on it, because it’s gotta be. Things like that.”

It’s not as if this version of Flacco is the same one who won Super Bowl MVP in 2013, though. He is 2-16 in his last 18 starts dating back to 2018, which spans stints with the Ravens, Broncos and Jets, where he’s 0-5 as a starter. He’s thrown for 1,202 yards, nine touchdowns, three interceptions and a 57.3 completion percentage in seven games with the Jets.

Flacco is a “very robotic quarterback and he wants to be told where the ball should go on each play,” the scout said. “Coaches will say what you don’t want is a quarterback who doesn’t do what you tell him (what to do), and another thing you don’t want is a player who only does what you tell him. Flacco is a little bit of that ‘only does what you tell him’ type.”

Wilson is prone to improvisation. Flacco is not.

And then there’s White.

Or, as he’s known among Jets fans: Mike f–king White.

White was walking with his wife Mallory, and their twin infants, Millie and Maddox, when a fan yelled from across the mall.

Mike effing White! You’re the GOAT!

It happened down in Tampa Bay this offseason, too. White was in a Chick-fil-A drive-thru and when he pulled up to pay, the worker asked him: “Are you the Mike White? Mike f–king White?”

“I’m like, no way, you don’t recognize me, no way,” White said. “You do just have to laugh, because it’s just crazy.”

During training camp, fans have been yelling his name, expletive included, anytime he takes the field. He might be the most popular third-string quarterback in the league. That’s at least true in New York.

A lot has changed since this time last year when White wasn’t even sure if he’d make the team. The Jets had just hired a new coaching staff, and he had no history with this offense — or with Saleh, LaFleur or Calabrese. There was also the added stress of his wife’s pregnancy — she was due during training camp. He wound up flying to Tampa just as the Jets were getting out to Green Bay for joint practices with the Packers. Maddox and Millie were born at 1 a.m., and then a few hours later White was on a plane, headed back to Wisconsin for practices and the preseason game.

“You grow up real quick,” White said.

The Jets went into the season without a veteran quarterback backing up Wilson, so White won that job. And then Wilson sprained the PCL in his right knee during a Week 7 loss to the Patriots. The next week, White made history in his first start, completing 37-of-45 passes for 405 yards and three touchdowns in an upset 34-31 win over the eventual Super Bowl-bound Bengals. No quarterback had ever put up those numbers (400-plus yards, three touchdowns) in his first career start. It was good enough that the Jets sent White’s game jersey to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.
Mike White threw for 405 yards and caught a two-point conversion pass in his first career start vs. the Bengals last season. (Vincent Carchietta / USA Today)

So, Mike effing White was born.
“It being my first start, I wasn’t even worried about winning the game or throwing for however many yards, I was just like: I want to do my job and give my team the best chance to win,” White said. “Because I knew there was 21 other (Jets) starters that want to win. A lot of their livelihoods depend on it. So that’s what I was first worried about: Not letting my team down. I had no idea I threw for that many yards until after the game. And then the stadium starts chanting my name and I’m like: What is going on?”

“It’s definitely something I’ll tell my kids about one day.

In the NFC scout’s eyes, LaFleur’s offense never operated better than when White was at the helm, even if he struggled (four interceptions against the Bills) after that stellar debut.

“The offense opened up when Mike White was in there,” the scout said. “It looked more like what you’d expect a Mike LaFleur offense to look like.”

White struggled when he jumped in for an injured Wilson against the Eagles in the preseason opener, only completing 10-of-20 passes for 98 yards and no touchdowns, though he did lead two scoring drives — and the Jets coaching staff remains high on him.

“We feel like we have three starting quarterbacks,” Saleh said.

That might sound hyperbolic to an outsider — but the coaching staff has been telling White that all offseason, especially when they went to re-sign him before hitting restricted free agency in March.

White, 27, is the veteran of the Jets QB room — he’s the only one who’s been around since 2019. Personality-wise, he’s more on the Flacco end of the spectrum than Wilson. He spends most nights after practice chasing Maddox and Millie around the house. They already started walking at 10 months, and now “they’re everywhere,” he said. “The best way to describe them when they first started walking: They’re little drunk people.”

When White isn’t asking Flacco for parental advice — he’s usually the one cracking jokes.

“It’s just a really good, dynamic group. I enjoy going into work and being in the quarterback room and shooting the shit with them,” White said. “I try to bring the comedic relief. Sometimes it can be really stressful in there.”

Shortly after the Super Bowl, LaFleur had a long conversation with Rams coach Sean McVay. They traded notes, and LaFleur asked a lot of questions. The Jets offensive coordinator likes to do that in the offseason — meet with minds from around the league, over the phone or via Zoom. He has connections to some of the NFL’s offensive geniuses, including McVay, his old boss Kyle Shanahan and his brother Matt LaFleur, the Packers coach.

The NFC scout views LaFleur as one of the brightest young offensive minds in the NFL and a future head coach. Even if the the Jets offense wasn’t especially impressive last year — 18.2 points per game, 28th in the league — the play designs still stood out. They “just didn’t always come to fruition,” the scout said, adding that when his team is evaluating a play design, “it doesn’t matter how the play unfolds. We’re looking for how they approach the game, what we can take, how we can learn from it. Mike LaFleur, I thought, he showed up in that sense. I liked his designs as much as any offensive coordinator I watched.”

A couple years ago, LaFleur had one of those long conversations with a young coach from the Broncos, not even yet 30 years old. His name: Rob Calabrese. That conversation stuck with him, especially since he came with a glowing recommendation from Rich Scangarello, a fellow Kyle Shanahan disciple and LaFleur’s confidant. All of that made it a “no brainer”, LaFleur said, to hire Calabrese as his quarterbacks coach, a crucial position on a staff tasked with developing Wilson.

“He’s a great coach,” LaFleur said. “I think the sky’s the limit for him.”

Flacco knew Calabrese too, from his half-season as the Broncos starter in 2019, when Calabrese was in his first year as a quality control coach. Flacco remembers Calabrese doing “all kinds of dirty work”, popping in and out of meetings, handing things out to players.

“I think he does a great job in there,” Flacco said. “You can definitely tell he knows football and he’s excited about it every single day. He’s really into it, and that’s the most important thing.”

Streveler called Calabrese “awesome” and “just one of the guys.”

“He coaches us hard and tells us what we gotta do but he’s just one of the guys in the room and that’s how it is with everyone,” Streveler said. “It’s a lot of collaboration as opposed to old-school coaching with the old guy demanding everything. It’s all collaboration. It’s a lot of conversation.”

That’s how LaFleur wants it in the quarterback room: conversation, collaboration.

“There’s great conversations and a dialogue that goes on in there,” Calabrese said. “With Mike running it, the open conversations we have on what we’re seeing, what they’re (the QBs) seeing, what they’re feeling, it just benefits everyone.”

The word LaFleur uses: trust.

“It’s just the trust factor,” he said. “I believe they trust me, and that I’m going to do everything I can to help them be the best that they can be.”
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Noam · Aug 25, 2022

Brook! said: ↑

Hey Noam. This has a paywall. Do you mind copy and pasting here?
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I tried copying and pasting that fast while multi tasking some work things. Hopefully it is all in the right order. Let me know if anything seems off or out of order and I will fix it. On Monday my odds of successfully multi-tasking is much higher than on Thursdays.

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

KY Jets Fan · Aug 25, 2022

REVISion · Aug 25, 2022

I'm way too excited about G Wilson. We never get nice things though so I have this creeping dread he's going to get hurt or something.

Noam · Aug 25, 2022

REVISion said: ↑

I'm way too excited about G Wilson. We never get nice things though so I have this creeping dread he's going to get hurt or something.
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I thought I was the only one with these thoughts. I find myself holding my breath when I see him or Moore catch the ball in pre-season. Only exhaling once I see them get up and walk normally. This is what 50 years of Jet fandom does to us. There should be a surgeon general warning in regards to watching Jet games.

abyzmul · Aug 25, 2022

REVISion said: ↑

I'm way too excited about G Wilson. We never get nice things though so I have this creeping dread he's going to get hurt or something.
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He has apparently had a ton of drops in camp so far, hopefully that's just a sign of the number of targets he's had.

Noam · Aug 25, 2022

Official 2022 Jets Training Camp

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