E-Boland & Gang Green

By Tom Rock

On this first day of training camp, the Jets are enduring a two-a-day – as in two headaches. Pete Kendall dropped another demand to be released and made it crystal clear he is unhappy to be at camp through both his words and his actions in practice (he was at the end of most lines during agility and skill drills and distanced himself from the pack of players during reps). Meanwhile, first-round draft pick Darrelle Revis was a no-show as the Jets were unable to ink one of their draft choices for the first time since 1997.

It’s not exactly the Strife of Strahan, but in the otherwise quiet world of the Jets this is what passes for controversy. Curtis Martin is gone for one day and the whole franchise goes up in smoke!

Of course neither situation is more than a passing distraction. Kendall will in all likelihood be released – probably as soon as every other team in the NFL has stocked up on o-linemen – and Revis will be here eventually. Mangini made a joke about kids liking to go to camp and this is camp for grown-ups minus the ghost stories. Just don’t expect all of the Jets to join in on the campfire songs each night.

The first practice went well in that no one was seriously injured. Otherwise, it was a pretty sloppy affair with bungled handoffs, botched snaps, dropped passes and lost breakfasts (yes, Leon Washington heaved up his Fruit Loops after running a penalty lap, but at least he had the decency to do it off to the side of the field and not at the hashmarks where the players were working).

A few notes: Tim Dwight and Matt Chatham, both placed on the PUP list with foot injuries, did not dress but were on the field for the morning workout. At one point Dwight looked very much like a coach with a rolled up sheet of paper in his hand giving instructions to Brad Smith and Wallace Wright during special teams work.

WR Jesse Pellot-Rosa, the basketball star from VCU who was signed by the Jets after a tryout, was dressed in full uniform but unable to participate with what looked like a cast on his left hand. Maybe he injured it while dunking. Or he took a hard foul in a pickup game. It can’t be comfortable for a player who really needs to prove his worth to be locked down on the sideline. The sooner Pellot-Rosa gets on the field, the sooner the Jets can make a fair assessment on him.

Interesting that the first real pass of training camp with the full offense was from Chad Pennington to … Justin McCareins. If you’d have asked anyone at the end of last season (including probably McCareins) if they thought he’d still be here at the start of training camp, they would have laughed. Now he seems poised to be a big contributor. He even passed the running test yesterday!

Shaun Ellis jumped around like a rookie after he playfully stripped the ball from Thomas Jones in one drill. The big guy looks quicker and leaner. Some folks told me he usually shows up to camp with a little paunch around the middle. I’m not sure if that’s been his past M.O., but it’s certainly not the case this year.

When the Jets went starting offense against starting defense, it was Ellis, Dewayne Robertson and Kimo von Oelhoffen up front, Bryan Thomas, Jon Vilma, Eric Barton and Victor Hobson at linebacker, Andre Dyson and David Barrett at corner and Kerry Rhodes and Eric Coleman at safety. Basically the same as last year. Hank Poteat had the only interception of the morning, picking a pass from Kellen Clemens.

Brad Smith switched to a red jersey mid-practice and started taking snaps with the QBs. Mangini said later that Smith is now considered to be a QB who can play some WR, as opposed to last year when he was a WR who could play some QB (and even started one game at tailback if you recall). Mangini said Smith is in the mix for the backup and third-string QB positions. It’ll be interesting to watch how that plays during camp.

WR Laveranues Coles dropped a deep pass from Chad Pennington. TE Chris Baker made a nice grab along the sideline at the end of practice.

And Mangini said that RB Cedric Houston will likely not return to the team, or to football. He said he was moving on with his life after two NFL seasons in which he showed occasional glimpses of adequacy for the Jets but always struggled with badly-timed injuries and never found his niche. He probably wouldn’t have been much of a factor on this team this year with Thomas Jones and Leon Washington taking the bulk of the snaps, but he seemed like a good guy. Good luck, Cedric.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to my wife Amanda. Sorry camp had to start on your birthday. Next year I'll try to plan it a little better!