Notes From Camp

Edition #635

Good morning! ☕

The Jets are currently running through their OTA’s and spirits are high as they always are this time of year. Aaron Rodgers looks great slinging the ball, Tyron Smith is apparently looking every bit the All-Pro he is and the young Jets stars are showing up as expected. Yes it’s OTA’s, it’s no contact, no pads which equals a glorified pitch and catch, but it’s one step closer to football.

A lot of guys met with the media yesterday, so we’re going to go through some notes from that today. It’s a bit of a bumper pack, and if you’re not subscribed…don’t forget to his that sub button.

🟢 PFF released their QB rankings ahead of the new season and they had Aaron Rodgers 8th (although they had him listed as the Green Bay Packers QB) “Who knows what Rodgers will look like in 2024 coming off his Achilles injury? But if you don’t take the toll of Father Time too far into consideration, Rodgers won MVP in 2020 and 2021, so just one season of play separates him from that back-to-back run. If he’s fully healthy, he has to remain a top-10 quarterback heading into the year. His resume demands it until we see otherwise.”

⚪ They also ranked their top 32 receivers heading into the new season and they had Garrett Wilson at #14 - “Last season was supposed to be the year Garrett Wilson became a truly dominant force, but his Hall of Fame quarterback going down after four snaps put pay to that. This could be that year. Wilson broke 22 tackles last season, second only to part-time-runningback Deebo Samuel in that category.” I will guarantee that if Aaron Rodgers stays healthy for the entire season, there won’t be 13 receivers in the NFL who finish with better stats than Garrett Wilson in 2024.

Isaiah Oliver transitioning to safety.

One interesting note was on Isaiah Oliver who has started the transition to safety, as confirmed by defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich.

Oliver played five years in Atlanta overlapping with Ulbrich for three of those years before moving to San Francisco in 2023. He also overlapped with Marquand Manuel who is now the Jets safeties coach, Manuel was with the Falcons in 2018 which was the same year Oliver was drafted in the 2nd round. So there is a lot of familiarity.

Oliver has spent much of his time in the NFL switching between outside corner and slot corner with over 2,600 of his 3,012 snaps coming at those positions.

Last season Oliver actually appeared in over 500 defensive snaps for the eventual NFC Champions, allowing 3 touchdowns to 1 interception. He also allowed 90.2% of the 51 targets into his coverage to be completed.

But the Jets obviously think that he’s a better fit at safety and if you were to look at all the positions on both sides of the ball, safety is probably their weakest.

We have Tony Adams and Chuck Clark setting up as the expected starters with Ashtyn Davis and Jarrick Bernard-Converse as the backups (although Saleh has said it’s an open competition). We also have a lot of unknown commodities in camp and sometimes you hope to catch lightning in a bottle. I’d be lying if I said I knew a great deal about Al Blades Jr. and Jarius Monroe, and we obviously can’t forget about Mr Irrelevant Jaylen Key, although I always feel strange calling someone that, it just seems disrespectful.

Aaron Rodgers understands the pressure

What I’m trying to avoid this year is copying and pasting a lot of stuff from the press conferences. After all, if you’re reading this you probably follow the team pretty closely and the likelihood is you’ve already seen the quotes. If not, they’re pretty easy to find.

But I do want to give my thoughts on some things Aaron Said.

The first is he understands the pressure to succeed, saying he know that if he doesn’t play the way he’s expected to play, they’re all out of there. By that he means the coaches, Joe Douglas and by default probably him as well.

The second is on distractions. He obviously got a lot of heat this off-season for his comments on eliminating distractions, only for him to constantly open his mouth and present distractions. He was asked about that, and he said that his appearances on the podcasts and all the other stuff were off-season opportunities, and when it’s time for football it’s only football. He’s going to be held accountable by the media, fans and hopefully his teammates once the season gets going. If you want to spout off some mantras, that’s all good. I love a mantra, I love positive affirmation. But you’ve got to live it as well, let’s see if he stays true to his word.

On the RFK running mate conversation, he said he had two choices, “Retire and be his VP or keep playing. I wanted to keep playing.”, Case closed.

Nathaniel Hackett to remain primary play caller