Jets Should Take Hard Line with Leon Washington & Thomas Jones

Although every Jets fan should be happy to see Leon Washington in camp in upstate Cortland, NY, there is reason to be annoyed with the way the running back and the team are spinning his willingness to participate.

 

As Washington’s Twitter-loving agent Alvin Keels tweeted Friday, “Leon Washington is at practice 2day as we continue to try to nail down the business side of things. He’s a Jet and has put the team b4self.”

 

Head Coach Rex Ryan chimed in, telling reporters Friday that Washington’s presence proves he’s a team-first guy.

 

If only that were completely true.

 

Washington is due to earn $535,000 this season in the final year of a deal he signed as a rookie in 2006.

 

He signed that contract and should honor it.

 

Never mind that Maurice Jones-Drew, a similarly versatile running back, is reportedly getting $6 million this season from the Jacksonville Jaguars.

 

If another NFL team chooses to rework a deal for a player, that does not mean a player on another team should hold out, or threaten to hold out, to try to get a similar deal.

 

One of the biggest problems in sports today concerns athletes who have been taught by their agents not to respect the validity of a contract.

 

The Jets should have already told Washington as well as teammate Thomas Jones that there will be contract renegotiations. Period.

 

Jones signed a four-year, $20 million deal in 2007 and he’s not happy.

 

What a joke! In this terrible economy, this pampered football player isn’t happy with a contract that averages $5 million a year?

 

Yet we’re supposed to applaud Jones and Washington for “putting the team first” by showing up for training camp with the rest of their teammates.

 

Showing up for work is the least they could do. Playing hard for their teammates and earning the money for which they signed is the minimum requirement for a professional athlete.

 

It’s time for Jones and Washington to focus on having big seasons to help accelerate the learning curve of franchise quarterback Mark Sanchez. That way, the Jets could actually achieve something this year.

 

Certainly Jones is proud to have led the American Football Conference in rushing in 2008, and Washington is proud to have set a franchise record for all-purpose yards last season.

 

But those individual accomplishments did nothing to satisfy Jets fans who saw their team choke away a divisional lead in the AFC East and miss the playoffs.

 

It would be better if the Jets’ organization from owner Woody Johnson to general manager Mike Tannenbaum to Ryan told Washington and Jones that we are not going to rip up the contracts you signed.

 

Honor your contract. Honor your profession. Stop griping.

 

That’s how an athlete truly puts his team first.

 

New York Jets Continue Their Gypsy Tradition During Preseason

It seems fitting that the New York Jets—the only NFL team that plays home games in a stadium named for a different NFL team—would decide to hold preseason practices at three different sites.

 

Come Friday, the Jets open camp at their newest home, the State University of New York at Cortland.

 

All over the metropolitan New York area, autograph seekers and football fans with camera phones are asking, “Where’s Cortland?”

 

Good question. Cortland is a town in Westchester County with a population on non-football days of 18,740—about the same number of people on a few city blocks along Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn.

 

The Mark Sanchez/Rex Ryan Era begins in a town 1,130 feet above sea level, which means Cortland has the highest elevation in New York State.

 

No wonder the Jets chose this place!

 

During the gut-busting, two-a-day-practice phase, the Jets hit the field at 8:15 am and 4 pm.

 

So look for the Jets in Cortland from July 31 through August 22 except for one notable change in venue.

 

On August 12, the Jets hold a 6 pm family night practice at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY—the team’s home base from 1968 until last year.

 

The Jets say the entire roster will sign autographs for fans after the final Hofstra practice. Nice, but not good enough.

 

Let’s hope the Jets have many of their famed alumni will be on hand, including Joe Willie Namath and Wayne Chrebet, the plucky former wide receiver and Hofstra graduate. If every notable Jets player isn’t there, it won’t be a fitting sendoff.

 

The Jets could also invite famous other Hofstra alumni like New York Governor David Paterson, wonderfully eccentric actor Christopher Walken, and, if he can swing a one-night furlough, convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff.

 

On second thought, forget about Madoff. With him on the sideline, things could get really ugly.

 

Finally, the Jets return to Florham Park, NJ, with open practices scheduled at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center on August 22, 26, and 27.

 

With the Jets putting down stakes this preseason in Central New York, Long Island, and New Jersey, there’s a chance Leon Washington and Thomas Jones could end their expected holdouts and then not know where to report.

 

New York Jets & NFL Should Stop Selling Sex

Half of the Jets’ four preseason games (Aug. 14 vs. the Rams and Sept. 3 vs. the Eagles) will be televised in the metropolitan New York area on WCBS-TV. That means Samantha Ryan, the station’s attractive sports anchor, will again be “reporting” from the sidelines.

 

You see women on the sidelines now on almost every football telecast, telling us the status of an injured player, interviewing an athlete’s parents in the stands, questioning a coach at halftime who just wants to get into the locker room, or demonstrating a firm grasp of the obvious:

 

“The Bills are down 24-0 in the fourth quarter, and the players are just so depressed down here on the sideline. Guys with their heads down. No emotion. No life. They just look totally beaten. Back to you in the booth.”

 

Sideline reporting has become a way to showcase pretty women on men’s sports events where they weren’t seen before. But is the job is unnecessary?

 

CBS admits as much once the regular season begins because it doesn’t use sideline reporters on NFL games. Instead, the announcers in the booth tell us about injured players and conduct post-game interviews.

 

Sideline reporters make news only when something embarrassing happens.

 

During a Jets-Patriots game on Dec. 20, 2003, ESPN put a clearly intoxicated Joe Namath on the air only to have him tell sideline reporter Suzy Kolber, “I want to kiss you.”

 

Because of a needless sideline interview, the greatest player in Jets history thoroughly humiliated himself on national television.

 

And remember the Monday Night Football debut of Lisa Guerrero in 2003? Guerrero, who went from modeling lingerie for FHM magazine to imitating a journalist, confused Redskins quarterback Patrick Ramsay with Jets quarterback Chad Pennington during a postgame interview.

 

Before an NFL game last season, comely Fox sideline reporter Danyelle Sargent asked 49ers coach Mike Singletary in a taped interview about a phone call he had received days earlier from coaching mentor Bill Walsh.

 

The problem: Bill Walsh is dead. She meant Mike Ditka, although she probably didn’t know the difference. The interview never went on the air.

 

Now, ESPN sideline reporter Erin Andrews is in the news because of a videotape, apparently shot through a peephole, showing her nude in a hotel room.

 

Despite all of her victories in Internet “Sexiest Sportscaster” polls, Andrews has not made one truly insightful or knowledgeable comment about sports on any network telecast. She is eye candy, nothing more.

 

And the existence of an X-rated video of her is not surprising. Sometimes, the aggressive selling of eye candy will compel someone to try to break into the store.

 

Unfortunately, every network that televises football, and every NFL team, is selling sex when the game itself used to be enough.

 

Why, for instance, do the Jets have an ad promoting their cheerleaders’ “Flight Crew” Swimsuit Calendar at the top of their Web site?

 

Why are busty, scantily clad “cheerleaders” on NFL sidelines at all? What message are the NFL and its TV partners sending?

 

A man can be obese, bald, wrinkled or all of the above and still get a job broadcasting football. But for a woman to get a high-profile gig at an NFL game she has to look like she interned inside the pages of Maxim.

 

If the TV networks want to groom women to work as studio hosts during NFL games, fine. If they want to hire women to do play-by-play (like Pam Ward of ESPN, who does college football), fine.

 

But don’t distract viewers with sideline reporters who couldn’t pass a football IQ test.

 

Stop pushing eye candy as if it were virtual crack and just give us football.

 

Jets Should Take A Flyer On Michael Vick

If Jets owner Woody Johnson keeps his word, then you’ll never see Michael Vick in a New York Jets uniform, unless you have Photoshop.

 

Asked about Vick, the infamous former dogfighter whose 23 months of confinement ended Monday, Johnson said, “We’ve got Kellen Clemens and now we have this young Mark Sanchez, and I think we are good on quarterbacks.”

 

That’s what every NFL team owner will say about Vick…in July.

 

Vick, the former Atlanta Falcons All-Pro, has yet to sit down with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and apologize for lying to Goodell’s face three years ago about his involvement in an odious dogfighting enterprise.

 

Vick, 29, has yet to hold his first post-incarceration news conference where he expresses sincere remorse for his crimes and announces his intention to use his money and name recognition to become an animal rights advocate.

 

Assuming he does that (and if he doesn’t, there’s no point in discussing a Vick comeback), then he deserves a second chance to play in the NFL.

 

And the Jets should give strong consideration to signing him.

 

No, I’m not suggesting the Jets turn Coach Rex Ryan’s first training camp into a media circus by signing Vick in the next couple of weeks. I don’t believe any NFL team will do that.

 

But, eventually, an NFL team will sign Vick. And the attention-grabbers from PETA (who even criticized President Obama last month for killing a fly during a TV interview) will be enraged enough to picket that team’s headquarters.

 

Then, all the heat will dissipate as assuredly as humid July days give way to crisp autumn Sundays, and Vick will wear an NFL jersey again.

 

As Jets wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery put it, “He is a talented player, so someone will give him a shot.”

 

The Jets shouldn’t be afraid to give Vick a shot. Not as an impediment to Sanchez, their quarterback to the future. But Vick would have value as an insurance policy and impact player off the bench.

 

Offensive innovation has not been the Jets’ strong suit in recent years. The team simply has not put enough playmakers on the field.

 

So even though Vick would bring more baggage than a 747, the man has made plays in the NFL, and he will again.

 

Brad Smith would not be nearly as potent a weapon in a Jets’ Wildcat package as Vick would be. Vick would give the Jets an even better run-pass option in the Wildcat than Pat White will for the Miami Dolphins this year.

 

And, remember, NFL starting quarterbacks get hurt. Often. The New England Patriots lost Tom Brady for the season in Week One last year.

 

Be honest: If the man Woody Johnson calls “this young Mark Sanchez” misses games because of injury, or proves he’s not quite ready to take the reins in the September 13 opener at Houston, are you confident that Kellen Clemens or Erik Ainge can take the Jets anywhere?

 

Vick has not played in an NFL game since December 31, 2006. But, again, somebody will sign him, because he has had success playing a position where the number of true impact players are few.

 

“The backup quarterbacks in the NFL are terrible,” former All-Pro receiver Cris Carter said Monday on ESPN. “He should play in the NFL again.”

 

True. And the Jets should be willing to take a flyer on Vick.

 

With Rex Ryan, They’re Not the Same Old Jets

Four months into Rex Ryan’s tenure as head coach it’s clear that his team isn’t the same old Jets.

If the coach has his way—and he has already served notice that it’s his way or the highway—the Jets will no longer be an afterthought in the AFC East.

And no longer will the Jets struggle to attain a home field advantage at Giants Stadium, particularly against divisional foes (losses to the Patriots and Dolphins in 2008).

Everything about the Jets—from Ryan’s hands-on approach to practices during organized team activities (OTA), to his insistence on holding everyone accountable for their actions, including himself, to his refusal to defer to the Pats—says Gang Green will be more than just a nickname for this crew. 

First, Ryan made it clear at his introductory press conference that he’s looking forward to bringing his players to The White House to meet President Obama—a courtesy afforded only to league championship teams.

Then, during a New York radio interview Ryan said that he has no intention of kissing the Super Bowl rings of Pats coach Bill Belichick.

Instead, Ryan says, he’s determined to build a team that ends the Pats’ favored status in the AFC East.

Like his daddy, Buddy Ryan, the architect of the 4-6 defense that helped the Bears reign in the NFL in the mid-1980s, Rex Ryan doesn’t give a hoot if he or his team is well-liked around the league. He only cares that his team is respected, if not feared, for its hard-hitting, take-no-prisoners approach.
 
So it comes as no surprise that Ryan traded verbal jabs this week with Channing Crowder, the mouthy middle linebacker of the defending AFC East champion Dolphins.

“I don’t know this Channing Crowder,” a smiling Ryan began at a news conference. “All I know is that he’s all [tattooed] up, so I guess I ought to be nervous about him.”

Ryan saw no reason to lapse into coach-speak after Crowder’s jibe that the coach’s tough talk had made the Jets “Super Bowl champions of the mini-camps.”

Instead, Ryan called out Crowder, without malice, and let everyone know it.

“Preparation in June does matter,” Ryan said. “It’s what helps you win (during the season).”

And for good measure, Ryan added that he had walked over tougher guys than Crowder on the way to a fight, and were he younger than 46, he would manhandle Crowder himself.

“Oh, Lord have mercy,” Crowder responded with a grin.

“What’s wrong with him? Now he’s talking about preparation. We play them twice this year. If he wants to be prepared, shouldn’t he know the starting middle linebackers of his division rival?”

Crowder may have been fooled. But Jets fans shouldn’t be.

Ryan, a stickler for preparation, knows full well who Crowder is and for whom he plays.

Ryan, as the Ravens defensive coordinator last season, devised a game plan that stifled Crowder’s team twice in Miami—once during the season and again in the playoffs.

Ryan might want to remind Crowder about that during their next round of verbal sparring:

“Hey, Crowder, sorry your defense had to spend so much time on the field against the Ravens last year because mine didn’t.”

Something like that might work.

Although Crowder claimed today that after he called Ryan yesterday the feud is over, it’s more likely that both sides agreed to a temporary detente.

Once the first Jets-Dolphins game draws near, the word wars will be back on.

And we can fully expect Joey Porter, Crowder’s even mouthier teammate, to dive into the verbal fray.

Ryan probably wouldn’t mind that at all. Nor should Jets fans.

Not only does Ryan’s willingness to write verbal checks for his players to cash add more interest to the Monday night game in Miami on October 12 and the rematch at the Meadowlands on November 1, but it also sends the message that the Jets no longer need an aging Brett Favre on their roster to get national attention.

Same old Jets? Hardly.

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