The Boone Docks

With E-Boland's comprehensive blog reports detailing every nuance of practice, so today is the tough transition back to reality. Boland begrudgingly took a day off, and even Mangini inquired as to his whereabouts. He must've thought Erik took his advice and found a date, but since I just got off the phone with Erik and he was parked on his futon, I'm guessing that's not the case:) Anyways, while even if I tried to mimic Erik's play-by-play rundowns (which I probably couldn't), today was the first installment of a very truncated practice viewing. Reporters were allowed to watch about 20 minutes of the team workout today, which consisted largely of stretching, footwork drills, and special teams, so nothing too exciting. Baker and Franks both made a couple nice grabs on 15-yard out routes, and I kid you not, Favre was dropping back into coverage on receivers for a couple practice reps...no need for a heart attack, he was just being playful and talking to some guys after their routes...he didn't pull a hammy or intercept any long balls:)

On a more serious note, Gene Upshaw was one of the main topics of conversation today in the locker room. Most players were shocked upon hearing the news and had no idea Upshaw was ill. Here are a couple of reax from the players:

FB Tony Richardson, NFLPA Exec Committee-
People are still in shock. We haven't had a chance to speak to anyone from the league yet or our union office. We're definitely going to miss Gene because he was a tremendous leader for our organization.

Hopefully, everyone in this locker room recognizes that they're a lot better for having Gene as their leader. He did so much. Every guy in this locker room can say they benefited from his leadership.

Brandon Moore, Jets NFLPA player rep-
His services to the leage won't be questioned. I think he'll be remembered as a guy that had the best interest of the players and took a stand and started out when there wasn't a lot of people in favor of that transition. He'll be remembered greatly by the players in the NFL.

Damien Woody, OL-
First and foremost, he was a Hall of Fame player, that’s the number one thing, great career, part of some great Oakland teams, but the big thing for people that really don’t know is, for a negotiator, he was really tough as far as really getting the players what they wanted out of the deal and a lot of things we have now in our cba's were from making a stand and just standing strong as an organization, and you have to give credit there to Gene Upshaw.

Another popular topic of conversation today was the Giants' formidable pass rush, and how that will provide the Jets O-line a gauge for their progress.

Nick Mangold, C-
They did a lot of great things on their defense. It'll be a good opportunity to see where we're at and see how things are doing.

Damien Woody, OL-
They were really good against Cleveland and they’ve got some really good athletes in the front seven. We feel like we're pretty good up front and it's gonna be a really good test, guys are definitely looking forward to it. We’re cleaning some things up today, and we'll just keep making progress up until the game and just go out there, most importantly have fun and see how it goes.

Tony Richardson, FB
Their front four is phenomenal. Anyone of those guys could have been up for MVP of the Super Bowl. They took over the game. It’s going to be a good task for us and it’s going to be a good measuring point.

--Katie Strang