Practice notes: As usual, Clemens gets picked off A few observations from today?s single practice: ? It wouldn?t be a training camp practice without an interception by Kellen Clemens, who tossed his sixth pick in nine practices. Yeesh! This one came on the final play. He was throwing to Brad Smith, who ran an in-cut of about 12 yards, I?d say. From the outset, you could see something was unusual about the pass coverage and, sure enough, it was a ?new defense that we hadn?t seen,? as Clemens later explained. The cornerback, Drew Coleman, dropped into a zone and played the inside route, which is ?something you usually don?t see,? Clemens said. He threw it right to Coleman for the interception. I don?t think Clemens was trying to create an alibi for his mistake, but the bottom line is, quarterbacks see new defensive schemes all the time. The experienced quarterbacks know how to adjust on the fly. To be fair, Clemens did throw a 30-yard completion to rookie TE Dustin Keller, who was mugged by S Cam Worrell (flagged for interference) and still made the catch. ? It was a nondescript practice for Chad Pennington, who worked with the first unit. His first pass in team drills was an underthrown corner route to Smith, who had a step on the defender. In the hurry-up drill, Pennington was fairly efficient, hitting six of 11 to set up a 38-yard FG by Mike Nugent. The drive fizzled with three straight incompletions. He did have two very nice throws, hitting Keller on a seam route and completing a 13-yard ?out? to Jerricho Cotchery. The latter pass had a little bit of mustard on it. Pennington isn?t having a spectacular camp (even though he has yet to throw an interception), but his dinks and dunks are beating Clemens? hits and misses. ? WR Laveranues Coles (left leg, possibly a hamstring), LB David Harris (leg) and LB Matt Chatham (foot) sat out. RT Damien Woody (eye) returned to team drills. ? Rookie OLB Vernon Gholston took some reps with the first-team base defense, splitting time with Bryan Thomas. Gholston looks a bit lost in a two-point stance, which can be expected. Remember, he was a down lineman at Ohio State. When he?s in a three-point stance, going forward, he looks a lot more comfortable. He seemed to have trouble getting off blocks, allowing runs to get to the outside. ? Third-string QB Brett Ratliff received two reps with the starters. In the first team drill, he actually replaced Pennington, coming in ahead of Clemens. This has been going on for a few days. The reason for that is two-fold, according to Eric Mangini: It?s a bone to Ratliff, who has impressed at times. It?s also a test to see if he can handle it. He took a step backward today, throwing an ugly, wounded-duck interception, picked off by James Ihedigbo. ? A lot of time was devoted to special teams - specifically, kickoff returns and kickoff coverage. ? Oh, by the way, there were no Favre-related distractions during practice. http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/jets/
This is my greatest fear. Having a safe offense is great when you have a lead and not so much when you down late. Still plenty of time left ot go.
Cimini's criticism of Clemens completely defeats itself... Duh, Rich... Clemens is NOT an experienced QB, and he is making these mistakes in TRAINING CAMP. The purpose of training camp is, you guessed, it, to TRAIN the players to prepare them for the games... He's not going to magically recognize and know how to beat every defense that is thrown at him in the first week of TC with half a season of starts, running for his life under his belt... Yeah, it's a competition, but they're working to impress the coaching staff- with their physical tools, potential, leadership, and understanding of the playbook, not the statisticians by putting up nice QB ratings...
The reason Clemens is facing so much criticism for his training camp INTs is because they are mostly (or all?) coming during 7-on-7 drills, which are supposed to give the offense the heavy advantage. It's basically Clemens using his smarts to throw against the secondary. He's not facing tremendous pressure or having to worry about different blitz schemes. He should be making a lot less mistakes. If he is having this much trouble when little pressure is being forced upon him, imagine what will happen against a full 11-on-11 defense. I say start Pennington every game, then replace him with Clemens if the team has to run a 2 minute drill down by more than 3 points. I'd rather lose via an INT than having to watch Chad throwing 5-7 yard passes and fall 40 yards short.
I don't like seeing Harris sitting out. If its leg soreness or a bum muscle, fine, stay out as long as you'd like until that bitch heals. He is the most important cog behind the D-Line. I have to see Keller in person to believe that this kid is a beast. Its too good to be true. I think you could see Ratliff get a series or two with the 2nd team early in pre-season. The CS wants to push this kid, because why put all that progress back on the PS when the finger-injured Ainge can learn there? Ainge can wait. Gholston may take this entire year before he is truly ready to go as a 3-4 OLB. I'm fine with that, as long as there are games where he is attacking the QB only and we get to see the display of power and speed in a Green Jersey. Clemens is disappointing, but I'd like to see him in Pre-season before the final judgment. If he has happy feet against a meh Cleveland Defense, 1st or 2nd team, then true concerns can settle in.
Dude, don't be bitter, Clemens has been in the Pro Game for 3 years. How long are you going to make excueses for him? I'd like to see him succeed too but he ain't beating CP, that is pretty clear.
Cimini can you be any more biased against Chad, he is clearly beating the shit out of Clemens and even though you don't want that to happen, do your job professionally and try to be a little bit objective. Face it Clemens has sucked so far so start talking about that and not Chad's dink and dunk, which is not what he has been doing by all counts I've read so far. In fact Eric Boland reported Chad actually out threw Clemens in a 50 yrd bomb drill that all QBs participated in. Bottom line, get your head out of Clemens ass or should we call him lemon so far? Same goes to all you posters hating Chad with your wet noodle buzz words. Face reality fellow fans, In Chad we Trust.
Or maybe: Mangini knows the press is there so in a practice where Clemens has done EVERYTHING right, on the last play he tells the D what play the O is running just so Clemens will throw a pick just and everyone can continue to spew this drivel about a twit wit a rockit while Clemens quietly goes about becoming the next Peyton Manning, but smart. And with a laser rocket arm.
Quote: "...Dude, don't be bitter, Clemens has been in the Pro Game for 3 years. How long are you going to make excueses for him? I'd like to see him succeed too but he ain't beating CP, that is pretty clear...." Supersonic, Beaman is not being bitter, he's being realistic. Kellen has been a clipboard clutching rookie, he's started 8 games on a 1-7 team without an OL or a chance in hell and now he's in training camp. There is some perspective that you can win pretty easily if you go back and a look at the "early days" of some of the more mythological QBs that have played in the NFL. Not everybody arrives from College ready to play first string QB in the NFL. Most QBs take a good while to figure out things -- if they're given the opportunity not to become the next David Carr, that is. The NYJs have the potential to create one David Carr after another -- generating so many QB smackdowns with their porous OL sieves that "injury-prone", and "accident waiting to happen" becomes Under-The-Center's orders of the day. I think this is a great time for Kellen to learn how to play his position better. It's not costing us a red cent in the W-L column.
Bro, he is in his third year. He is far from a rookie and he is playing protected with a red shirt in training camp. There are lots of stories of guy who rule camp and then suck in games but not really the other way around. The sands in his hourglass are running low. I bet if Ainge was helthy he would be having a better camp. After all, Ratliff is. Maybe he should get Clemmens reps.
This is just an opinion based on observation, or rather from reading all TC reports. I think if Clemens doesn't improve over the week end, the QB depth chart could take some serious changes. I think because of the emergence of Ratliff, Ainge could wind up on IR. I noticed the other day when they were having red zone drills, only 3 QB's took part. Ainge wasn't one of them. Ratliff has been taking a few snaps with the first team, and where as he hasn't set the first team on fire there was an interesting comment by, I think it was Boland about one of them. He had taken two snaps in Clemens slot and went 1-2. The interesting part was the first one was incomplete, and the Scribe commented, Cotchery was covered, so Ratliff appeared to throw it away. On the second one he hit Coles on a 12 year out. Incompletion are rarely good for a young QB, but when a young QB uses his smarts and throws a ball away, rather then throw it in to coverage, he wins points in the eyes of the coaches. If it were a game situation, the 12 yard out would have given the team a first down. If Clemens doesn't pick it up over the week end I have a feeling Ratliff will be getting a share of Clements snaps. Just saying
Maybe Clemens is starting to get it. This from Leberfeld: Kellen has solid practice By Dan Leberfeld Posted Jul 31, 2008 It's no secret Kellen Clemens has been inconsistent over the first week of practice. But the third year signal-caller really stepped up his game on Thursday morning. Clemens had some real nice throws throughout the session, and didn't throw any interceptions. He had a chance to also run a two minute drill, and looked solid doing that. The two minute drill is one of his strengths. http://nyj.scout.com/2/774054.html
Do you think if Ratliff continues to impress and Clemens continues to falter, Ratliff could actually go into the season as #2 on the depth chart? That would be hard to imagine, but stranger things have happened.
