Cine's Anthony Barr Impersonation

Edition #689

Guten Morgen ☕

No deal is ever done until it’s done. Lewis Cine informed the Jets that he intended to sign his contract at 1JD, only to do a U-turn at the 11th hour. Instead Cine will be heading to Buffalo to work under his former college coach in the hope that Jahmile Addae can sprinkle some magic on a faltering career. He’ll actually mostly be working with Joe Danna who’s the current safeties coach in Buffalo. Some will remember that Danna was part of the Jets coaching staff under Todd Bowles in 2015-16.

I’m a little disappointed that Cine decided to head to Buffalo. I understand the familiarity and I get that his route to playing time is more straight forward on a less talented defence, but I think working with the staff we had would have unlocked any NFL potential he has. If you look at what they’ve done with 5th round pick Michael Carter II and UDFA Tony Adams, then I’d have backed them to get something out of Cine who was deemed worthy of a first round pick.

The moral of the story? Much like the Anglo-Saxons must have told their children…never trust a Viking.

I’m sending a quick newsletter today as I was dragged around a chocolate museum this morning and just nipped back to the hotel. I did get my own back by dragging my daughter around the Deutsches Sport & Olympia Museum.

🟢 Jason Brownlee cleared waivers and will be returning to the Jets practice squad. I really didn’t think he’d get through, but then his production has been limited. We hear of his positive contributions to practice, but not a lot of NFL teams will be sold on that. I still think there is something to Brownlee, but once a team waives you once it can be hard to get a foothold. We’ll see if the Jets can hang on to him and if/when he’s elevated to the active roster. I do believe the Jets are big fans of Brownlee and his waiving was purely a numbers game, so Joe Douglas will be pretty happy he made it back yesterday.

⚪ Really positive news for the Jets in terms of their practice report. Michael Carter II is back on the field and should be ready for week one, and Mike Williams returned to team drills and will also be ready for week one. Williams won’t have a full role, but he’ll play enough to make an impact (we hope). Getting Williams back is huge for the Jets and the diversity of the offence.

🟢 The Jets had a very productive practice yesterday according to coach Saleh, but we’ll never know as it was behind closed doors. It was reportedly similar to the green & white session and it included a heavy workload for all the starters. The Jets will now have four days off before reporting on Tuesday to begin their regular season preparations for the game in San Francisco.

⚪ The wait for Reddick continues. Joe Douglas spoke about it and it sounded pretty familiar. Show up and then we’ll talk. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear as though Reddick has any intention of showing up. Douglas actually confirmed that he hadn’t spoken to Reddick directly since the 1st of April and hasn’t spoken to his agent recently either, "The ball is in their court,". If he continues to hold out, then he’ll lose his money and be in this situation again next year, which seems completely illogical to me, but then I’m not a multimillionaire athlete so what do I know.

🟢 Joe Douglas was asked about Aaron Rodgers and his reponse “He’s amazing”. All the reports are positive of Aaron’s time in NY so far, the players like him, he’s good with the fans, listen to any interview and the players talk about how accessible he is and how much he wants to help and offer advice…but then the Athletic put out a hit piece about how the Jets are in disarray, mainly because of Rodgers. I cancelled my Athletic membership 12 months or so ago and if you have one I’d encourage you to do the same. It’s no longer journalism, it’s a struggling business structure that employs people like Diana Russini who write click-bait rubbish about players who don’t bend over backwards for them. I know put The Athletic below Bleacher Report. Shame.

⚪ Joe Douglas believes this team is ready to win and for his sake, it needs to: "I feel like this is a team that's ready to win, and I feel that work that everybody's put in, staff, the football operations staff, coaching staff, players ... this, this has been a really good training camp," he said. "So I can't wait to see all the fruits of everyone's labor as the season goes on, and obviously, it's going to be a roller-coaster season, just like any other season. But again, it's a great group of people to take the journey with."

🟢 Last year was testing, but Douglas was impressed with how well the team stuck together after losing Rodgers just four plays into the season: "Well, I think when things did hit the fan last year, I think one of the more encouraging things was how the team stayed together and how hard the team played. There was never wavering of effort or togetherness. And I thought that was one of the silver linings of a difficult season. But as the team stands now, I feel like this has been a remarkable training camp, and I feel like this is a great collection of talent and character, as good a collection of people as I've been around in 24 years. And so really, I'm excited about this journey. I have no idea where it's going to end, but I think this is a great group to lock arms and travel with."

⚪ He also reserved some real love for the coaching staff and you feel Aaron Whitecotton in particular: "We have three undrafted guys at a premium position like the D-line come in and really do their thing," Douglas said. "It's a credit to a lot of people, it's a credit to the work that goes into recruiting these young men, our scouts, evaluating the players." He added: "We know exactly what our coaches are looking for and we can point to specific examples of guys coming in that may not have been premium picks but are being developed by a great staff."

🟢 Eric Watts is in dreamland having made the 53-man roster as one of three UDFA defensive linemen, which is basically unheard of: "It was just in the back of my mind every single moment of every day," Watts said. "Which is good because it sort of what forces you to do the small things and focus on the little details that make the biggest differences, but I was just so nervous over probably the last two days. I hadn't been eating the same. I was really just hoping things would work out."

⚪ We haven’t heard a great deal about John Simpson through camp, but Coach Saleh wanted to highlight him: "Simpson doesn't get talked about enough in this whole thing," HC Robert Saleh said. "I think he's been phenomenal through camp and he's going against [Javon] Kinlaw and Quinnen [Williams] every day. … He's been super impressive, in a good group man. I'm excited to see him get to work."

Good news for the San Francisco 49ers, Bradon Aiyuk is back in the building and signed long-term. According to Adam Schefter the deal signed by Aiyuk was the same one that has been on the table since early August. So John Lynch and the 49ers held firm and they came out as the winners. Now the 49ers will switch their focus to getting Trent Williams back on the field.