As I read all the Jet beat writer blogs/articles, I'm noticing most if not all of them are keeping track of total interceptions for Kellen Clemens as if it is some hard measure. Typical summary: "Clemens had a bad afternoon practice. He threw an interception in 7 on 7 drills." Here's some questions: -how many interceptions are starting QBs around the league throwing in two-a-days typically? -how can you state he had a completely bad practice because he threw a pick? How many throws did he make in the entire session? -Isn't this all just a bit silly? I know there's extra attention on the QBs because of the uncertain status at the position, but shouldn't we wait until the first pre-season game before making these judgements?
Its a QB competition and every snap will influence who wins the starting spot. If you have one QB with 0 INT's, and another with 6 INT's, you would tend to think management would go with the first. Of course preseason games will have a major role in the decision, but Mangini was also the one that called out Clemens on his INT's... naturally the media will jump on that.
it goes with that Mantra of you play how you practice... if you continuously throw it to the defense in practice, it's most likely going to be the same thing on game day...
Point well taken. I think the real question is to ask is does Clemens keep making the same mistake over and over even after being coached on how to identify the situation that causes it. I really think that is the true concern.
I agree to an extent. It's just not particularly encouraging when there's a qb competition and your 3rd year guy is uncomfortable behind center and is making the same mistakes over and over.
I don't think it's silly, but they should focus on other things too. It's easy to count the INT's and make a judgement based just on that. They should definitely be a factor, but not the whole equation. It would be nice to get a little more of a breakdown than how many INT's each one has thrown.
I agree. I was hoping that Kellen would come out on fire and lock the job up but he seems to be doing just the opposite. Chad is having a good camp by most reports. I can't wait for preseason to see some of both of them and get a better feel for it myself.
I don't think keeping track of interceptions is silly, but it doesn't really prove anything from a TC standpoint unless you are the coach and know what situations they are occurring in and why, but it is pointless for a reporter to just post that stat and not the situation. What I think is silly is keeping track of the penalty laps run by players. Do these reporters know so little about what is going on in front of them that penalty laps are that needed as fodder? There's an entire frigging training camp going on in front of them, they should be thanking the football heavens that there is relevant news to be reported.
Early in camp I would write it off as just a rough start. But if it continues a few weeks into the preseason games, then it can be a concern.
Clemens doesn't throw all that many interceptions. That's not his weakness, his weakness at the moment is accuracy. If I were a beat writer I'd be tracking his completion percentage and yards per attempt. That'd tell me what I needed to know about how he was competing at the moment. The line was terrible last year and the receiving corps was riddled with injuries and he still only had a 4.0 INT percentage. That's actually damn good for the situation he was in. His accuracy on the other hand sucked.
I agree. Plus Clemens is young and clearly trying to be a more vertical passing type QB as his skills indicate. But Pennington once again gets rewareded for taking no risk whatsoever.
The coaching staff has a huge priority on not turning the ball over--as most do--for QBs, RBs, anyone who touches the ball, so it matters for now. Once they start playing pre-season games against other teams, then that will matter most and what's happening now probably not so much. The one difference this will make is who gets the first shot to line up with the first team in a game, I would guess.
