E-Boland & Gang Green

While waiting for the Gholston deal to become official (hopefully), a few afternoon practice notes:

* I went through a bit of the quarterbacks in the below post but there’s a couple more things worth mentioning, among them Dustin Keller. Fans in attendance today – which included Ira (good to meet you), R in CT (likewise), and another HOF commenter who wished not to be identified (still good to meet you, too) – saw the slippery tight end create matchup difficulties and find openings in the seam several times. He benefited three quarterbacks today – Pennington, Clemens and Brett Ratliff, who incidentally, had a good day today. I was discussing this with thejetsblog.com’s Brian Bassett – well on his way to becoming the king of all Jets media I firmly believe – that an argument could be made that Ratliff had the second-best day by a quarterback today. Yes, it’s early, but the kid should get his due.

Anyway, Clemens, in one 11-on-11 drill this afternoon completed consecutive short passes to Laveranues Coles. His third pass was the pick mentioned in the below post.

“Get Favre!” came a lone fan’s voice from the bleachers. Tough training camp crowd.

Clemens had one memorable throw in the afternoon, a 15-yard slant to Chansi Stuckey, who had gotten inside David Barrett (and don’t think I don’t realize the effect that name has on some of you. Barrett, not Stuckey). To be fair, Clemens was called upon to throw plenty of dump offs and screens – a handful each to Thomas Jones and Leon Washington, both of whom looked explosive on such plays. One in particular stands out: when Jones took a screen from Pennington and, with Nick Mangold and Will Montgomery (some mixin’ and matchin’ on the line) leading the way, bolted for a 60-yard touchdown.

* Speaking of receivers – we weren’t but whatever – some nice catches today from Paul Raymond, the rookie from Brown. We highlighted one on this morning’s practice report and he had two more this afternoon. He caught a 35-yarder over his right shoulder - surrounded by Ahmad Carroll and Cameron Worrell - from Ratliff down the sideline, and also hauled in a 15-yarder from Erik Ainge on a shorter sideline route. David Clowney also had a solid 13-yard sideline reception in the afternoon on a ball thrown by Pennington in addition to the longer one described in the previous post.

* Finally, interesting day for Danny Woodhead, the Division II rookie free agent. He saw a lot of time in the backfield - both running and taking some short passes - and returning kicks, more than what we saw in the OTAs and minicamp. Keep in mind some of that results from Musa Smith and Jesse Chatman missing the day as they’re still on the non-football injury list. [Mangini said, by the way, those two aren’t going to be out long]. Woodhead showed some agility but this stood out to me from the morning: on several of Woodhead’s carries that I saw, he plowed – "disappeared" might be the better word with the 5-7 Woodhead - into the line and was surrounded by four tacklers at a time who were ripping at the ball with their much-bigger arms. Woodhead didn’t fumble.

And with that, goodnight, though not really because as I post this, we’re still at Hofstra. Back tomorrow, if not sooner.