By Tom Rock
Well, the deadline to present an offer to restricted free agents is closing in, and it doesn’t appear that the Jets will be making any moves. As a refresher, the team brought in OL Stacy Andrews from the Bengals and CB Randall Gay from the Patriots early last week.
Rich Moran, Andrews’ agent, said “there was interest from both parties” but things just never worked out and his client will be re-signing with the Bengals for a 1-year deal. There’s as pretty good chance the Jets will revisit the Andrews situation next offseason when he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Andrews didn’t play competitive football until his senior year at Mississippi (he was one of the blockers for Eli Manning, by the way) and has been a developing project since. Teams see his 6-7, 342-pound frame and drool over the possibilities. It seems to be a good move for the Jets to wait this situation out. Rather than hand a second-round pick over to the Bengals, they’ll let him gain another year of experience in the league and see if he improves at a decent enough clip. If he does, he could be wearing Green and White at right tackle in 2008.
As for Gay, who also would have cost the Jets a second-rounder, that may just be a poke at the Pats. Like Andrews, Gay will be an unrestricted free agent next year. It might actually help Gay to stick with the Pats for another season; if he can stay healthy enough in 2007 to dismiss concerns about his injury-plagued career, he’ll hit the market as an even better commodity and probably wind up with a better deal than any RFA contract would have given him.
As a side note, I’m covering the Islanders in Buffalo today. After the morning skate, a bunch of us notebook jockeys were in the changing room talking to players and in walked coach Ted Nolan. He proceeded to hop on an exercise bike in the middle of the room and started pedaling. No one seemed to think this was odd. In fact, the casual conversation turned quickly to the movie “300” then segued to baseball and the Yankees-Red Sox series.
I guess that’s part of the charm of hockey, the informality and the access. I couldn’t imagine being in the Jets locker room and having Eric Mangini hop on a treadmill without 20 or so reporters swarming him. And we wouldn’t be asking him about what movies he’s seen lately. Can you imagine what would happen if Joe Torre came into the Yankees clubhouse and started doing push-ups or jumping jacks? Hockey is a different world. Not always better, not always worse, but certainly different.
P.S. -- Just by way of a hockey update, I walked into HSBC Arena here in Buffalo and almost got clunked in the head as Isles goalie Rick DiPietro and F Arron Asham were have a baseball catch in the hallway. Apparently they both thought to bring their gloves with them on the trip. What an odd league.