Blogger Erik Boland Printer-friendly posts August 4, 2008 Day 12: afternoon practice report, and Eric Mangini plans to marinate his quarterbacks Or that?s a version of what the coach said when he was asked this afternoon about who would start Thursday. ?I'll look at it, marinate on it and make a decision,? Mangini said. ?But it won't be any sort of earth*shattering news.? Nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see here, so on to practice: * We?ll start with defense because Vernon Gholston registered two ?sacks? [non-contact] against the first-team offensive line tonight lining up at OLB. Remember, he abused the second-team line a week ago Sunday in the practice bubble so getting those two against the first line (the Woody/Moore side) was a positive sign. For Gholston, at any rate. Also, another strong, strong practice for David Bowens. We talked about him this morning and he was even better this afternoon. He deflected two passes, one by Chad Pennington and one by Brett Ratliff. He was in the backfield twice as well for pressures. And chalk up two more pressures for Calvin Pace, too. * Chris Baker, who returned to the field this morning, caught his first pass of camp, a 17-yarder on the left sideline, getting away from Cameron Worrell, thrown by Pennington (Baker later dropped a 10-yard pass in the flat from Clemens). Pennington had a great throw down the seam to Chansi Stuckey for 23 yards during one 11-on-11 drill and then one play later, Stuckey made the catch of the day, of the last week probably. Running a medium out pattern, Stuckey laid out horizontally and caught a Pennington pass for a 15-yard gain. Pennington?s other solid throw of the afternoon came when he hit David Clowney on the right sideline for 15 yards. Does Pennington have a little more ?zip? on his passes so far in camp? I would say yes ? though we?re not talking John Elway ? on the seam stuff and deep balls over the middle. On the deep outs, not so much. * Clemens? afternoon wasn?t as good as his morning. He probably peaked during a blitz drill when he lasered a 21-yarder to Jerricho Cotchery on a corner route. Clemens also completed a 10-yard pass over the middle to Leon Washington on the next play and later in the series connected with Cotchery again, this time underneath for eight yards. But the interception scourge reared its head once again, as that tally now reads 8-2 in favor of Clemens. Throwing for Dustin Keller deep down the left sideline, Keller mistimed his jump ? though it probably wouldn?t have mattered on the overthrown ball ? and Justin Miller made the easy interception. That marked Miller?s third interception of training camp. * There was an Erik Ainge sighting. The fifth-round draft pick has had a tough camp but he threw and absolute dart over the middle to Stuckey for 11 yards during an 11-on-11 drill. But that was nothing compared to what happened later in practice when he unloaded a Hail Mary from the 43-yard line toward the right corner of the end zone. In the middle of four defenders ? including safety James Ihedigbo, who badly mistimed his jump in trying to deflect the ball ? Wallace Wright came down with the ball for a touchdown. Rafliff showed off his gun once again, hitting David Ball down the right sideline for 43 yards as new pickup Rudy Burgess was a half step behind. * Among the lap runners this afternoon: Alan Faneca (false start), Damien Woody (False Start), Leon Washington (muffed punt). * Injury note: backup offensive lineman Clint Oldenburg injured what appeared to be his right knee during an 11-on-11 drill and was helped off the field by two members of the medical staff. He spent the rest of the practice on the sideline getting treatment. Stanley Daniels replaced Oldenburg. Laveranues Coles (thigh) practiced after missing the last several days. David Harris (leg), Jason Trusnik (foot), Marcus Henry (unspecified) and running back Jesse Chatman (unspecified) sat out both practices. * Practice ended with some humor as Mangini allowed the two starting safeties, Kerry Rhodes and Eric Smith, to attempt 43-yard field goals toward the goal posts that are the same distance apart as the ones used in Arena League. Turns out had the goal posts been 50 yards apart, it would not have mattered. The kicks barely cleared ground level but everyone got a laugh. * Just one practice tomorrow, at 1:30 p.m. It is open to the public. As is tomorrow morning?s live chat, which will take place on the road, away from the World?s Most Famous Futon. We will be here, in the media room at Hofstra, with the chat, our third on this blog, set to begin at 11:30 a.m. Questions are welcome because, well, that?s the idea. Email this ? Subscribe to this feed ? Add to del.icio.us ? Digg This! ? Share on Facebook Posted by Erik Boland on August 4, 2008 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Bro he never even indicated which knee Vilma tore when he tore his ACL. What makes you think you'll get a "clue"
Not being coy but I'm sure that it has something to do with ball velocity. Clemens throws some lasers, that much we know. Pennington's, on the other hand, are measured via a monthly calendar, in terms of how long it takes for the ball to get to the receiver. Ducks, floaters, call them what you will...
nothing friendly about a defender in full sprint when youve stopped running your route to watch the ball take forever to get there. lol
Is anyone else disturbed that we keep reading better things about Ratliff and Ainge than Pennington and Clemens? Maybe I'm not looking forward to football...
This was the first positive thing I've read about Ainge in some time. It's going to be quite a while before he's "NFL-Ready." QB situation does concern me greatly though. I'm really hoping that one of these clowns shows us something special over the course of the next 4 games..
at least we are not undersized and look like a middle school team out there, and maybe, just maybe we can get a foward push in the trenches, if we can do that i am satisfied for next season lol
Yeah, I was purposely exaggerating, but the point remains. We don't have a single NFL QB on the roster, or at least, that's how it appears so far.
I don't see anything negative about CP (once again) in this TC report. The only thing I hear negative about CP is just about anything to do with his past. Still, good TC report for the team.
Actually, I think it has to do more with Kellen's passes being very wobbly at times. He throws some really bad spirals. Those can't be easy to catch.
Well, there's also the other PM TC article thread for yesterday, that talks about how both of the starters threw interceptions. Plus, any article that doesn't say "Chad really played well in this practice" is really just another mark against him. If he's not excelling enough to warrant praise, he's not performing. Same goes for Clemens. If there's nothing saying that either of these guys is starting to break away, then we're no closer to having a starting QB today than we were 9 months ago.
idk it could be worse.. with CP your getting a mistake free qb but with limits and with clemens your getting a laser armed bad game manager.. at least its not between chad henne and josh mccown
Not sure whether to get excited or concerned about the great pressure we are getting on the QBs. Glad to hear about Gholston, Pace & Bowens (let's please find some reps for this guy). Hope its more a good sign about our OLBs instead of negative about our O-line pass protection.
Ugh, I read it the same way. It's hard not to be a "glass half empty" guy as a Jets fan. I'm going to laugh my ass off when Mangini finally makes the starting QB announcement... "The week one starter for the New York Jets will be Brett Ratliff."
They're practicing all day, usually twice a day, so guys are going to make plays on both sides. Unless there's a constant pattern of someone doing great or badly, it doesn't tell you much of anything until they start going up against other teams.
