Carolina Panthers: Joint Practice

Edition #678

Good morning! ☕

It’s hard to really gauge where the Jets are at the moment, I think we’re a good team but you can’t be sure until the pads come on for real. Last week the Jets dominated the Commanders in the joint practice and then went out and beat them in the glorified practice called a pre-season game.

This week the Jets are heading to Charlotte for a joint session with the Panthers before facing them in a game on Saturday night. In the NFL.com pre-season power rankings, they had the Commanders as the 26th best team in football and the Panthers as the 32nd ranked team in football…so logic would suggest that the Jets dominate Carolina as well, especially as Aaron Rodgers will actually participate in this one after sitting out the Washington session due to the heavy rain.

We had the pleasure of a Jeff Ulbrich media session yesterday and he’s always good for some sound bites and honest assessments of his team. Here are some of the quotes to come from that session:

• On Morestead "You could make a claim that he was the MVP of the defense last year for all the times that he pinned people in, inside the 20-yard line, made people have to go the distance on us."

• On JBC switching to CB "Whether he wins or loses, he's just building this library of information in his brain & it's so cool to see because he's a very cerebral player, he's very intelligent. ... To see him start to stack really solid days is exciting."

• Clemons bulked up last year and Ulbrich said that impacted his movement. He’s back down to his rookie year weight and Ulbrich said "His movement is so much better than it has ever been." He continued "His pass rush is really starting to develop. I am so excited about what he can be because he's a guy that on paper you might say is first- and second-down player. He's really making a case for a third-down role now."

Nathaniel Hackett spoke about the budding relationship between Garrett Wilson and Aaron Rodgers: "It's good to see and it'll continue to get better. It's not (fully) there yet, but we're definitely going in the right direction."

Practising against Aaron Rodgers has benefits according to Jermaine Johnson - "He is smart and just knows what plays to get to," Johnsons said. "He has man beaters or zone beaters, whatever have you, or if he can get a hard count in. He is just a field general that has been doing this as a long time at a really high clip. He is certainly the best we will go up against, and we go against him every day."

Jermaine Johnson believes confidence is the key to the growth that we’ve seen - "I just have grown a lot in my confidence from the beginning of my career to now," Johnson said. "I have been here and done it, now I am just taking my game to that next level. Solly (Solomon Thomas) told me yesterday that the sky is the limit for me and just to keep going. I tell myself that all the time, but for your peers to also see that in you and being respected it very important to me."

In one of the most ridiculous features we’ve seen from PFF, they have graded all 32 first-round picks after just one pre-season game. Here’s what they had to say about Fashanu - “Fashanu’s first game in New York very much mirrored his college career: excellent pass protection and work-in-progress run blocking. He didn’t lose any of his 12 pass-blocking reps. His feet are constantly moving in pass protection and his fundamentals are incredibly clean. His biggest mistake was committing a false start on the Jets’ first drive. Otherwise, he had a fine day.”

They also outlined one take from each NFL teams first depth chart, and here’s what they had to say about the Jets and their continued support of Allen Lazard - “The Jets upgraded their receiving corps in a big way by signing Mike Williams from the Chargers and drafting Malachi Corley in the third round. But for now, offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett continues to trust his longtime former Packer Lazard, listed as a starter on the team’s first depth chart. The 28-year-old Lazard wasn’t at his best in his first year in Florham Park. His 52.7 PFF overall and 52.6 receiving grades were both career lows, and drops (17.9% rate) were also a big problem. Lazard has obvious chemistry with Aaron Rodgers, and the Jets seem to be banking on that despite there being encouraging players on the inside behind him.”

In an interesting development, we may be seeing Corey Davis in the AFC East this year. The former Jets receiver has a tryout with the Bills after taking a brief one year retirement from football.

❌ Nothing to see here people. Tuesday represented the longest practice of training camp and the team was heading to Carolina for a joint practice with the Panthers today, so they decided to have a walkthrough. We’ll have plenty of camp notes tomorrow following the joint session.