Recap: Our man on the scene reports from day two in Richmond

Living in Virginia has a few benefits. High quality of life, low cost of living, excellent public universities, lots to see and do … oh and one of the country’s highest per capita brewery counts in its capitol city. One of the other benefits is that the Jets have worked with the Washington Redskins for three days of practices which I get to enjoy in my own backyard. While I wasn’t able to get over to practice for Sunday’s kerfuffel, here’s what I saw today on day two.

Minus a few key pieces (OL, OLB) the sheer depth on this team is something I’m not used to seeing in a long time. A microcosm of this is the receiving corps. Jermaine Kearse (flanker) and Robby Anderson (split end) are not the optimal players to remain the long-term starters for this team this season, but they seem the most likely to begin the season as starters and offer the best “floor” when it comes to production. Robby Anderson might be harder to displace, but if Terrelle Pryor can get healthy he could give Anderson a run for his money. As far as Quincy Enunwa? Should he be able to overtake Kearse, there’s a lot of upside Enunwa would bring with him. Add in a little Chad Hansen in the slot and that's a group with a lot of promise.

Speaking of Pryor and injuries, he apparently told the media after practice he broke his ankle back in May and now he has “a hip thing.” It’s a shame because Pryor is a behemoth on the field and with his height adjusted speed he’s a defensive coordinator’s nightmare when he is at full speed.

The quarterbacks all look good for their own reasons.

Josh McCown’s athleticism and movement is striking when you see it up close … it’s an aspect of his game that goes largely unheralded and I don’t understand why.

Teddy Bridgewater has that calm demeanor and smooth release will have teams calling Mike Maccagnan’s office in the next few weeks. For less than a 3rd round pick I don’t know that I’d move him. On the whole he looks like he’s back from his injury, although I did notice a funny gait running between drills at one point … but then again his shoulders and hips seem to be working fine …

I like Sam Darnold a lot, but you can see that he’s got that more improvisational style, which has its benefits and drawbacks. When you watch his mechanics, his throw motion is pretty fluid. He’s the opposite of another rookie Josh Rosen in that way. That said, in the NFL the play and the pocket will have the tendency to break down. Will that fluid style play well in those situations? When paired with good presence and vision (which Mark Sanchez seemingly never had) it certainly could.

Since Trenton Cannon is a Virginia kid, there was a lot of love in the stands for him. It looked as if a few members of his family were there to cheer him on. On the whole he had a fine day in what I saw of him at practice. With a 92nd percentile burst score and 84th percentile agility score, it’s going to be hard not to cheer for him after his big game against the Falcons. Should he be able to clean up his special teams, there might be a spot for him at least on the initial roster if Elijah McGuire is still a no-go at cutdowns.

I only saw a little bit of it. But the Jets backup cornerbacks were having a rough go of it on a deep pass drill. I’ll watch it again tomorrow, but I don’t think that the secondary coaches will be too please with how their guys fared against the likes of Washington WR Cam Sims and TE Jeremy Sprinkle.

It is great to see things come full circle. Watching Antonio Cromartie out on the field working with the wideouts and defensive backs to help them with technique. Hopefully this coaching internship will lead to a full-time role for Cromartie with a club … maybe even the Jets?

I brought my eight year old son, Eliott to practice today. He LOVES football and declared last season (as most eight year old front running kids do…) that he is a Rams AND Vikings fan. I thought he would be enraptured with training camp. Not so much. Stretching and positional drills, even some scrimmaging apparently doesn’t exactly move the needle yet. Bonding experience tried. Lesson learned. In his defense he said “I had fun, just not as much fun as you.”


It's no understatement to say that Brian Bassett is one of the forefathers of the NFL fansite blogging revolution over the last decade. Best known as the founder of TheJetsBlog.com and one of the presenters of The Jetsblog Podcast, his words have graced the pages or wordpress engines of multiple high-profile sites since 2004. These days, Bassett has a lot of other stuff going on, but we're always grateful to welcome him as an occasional JetsFix guest columnist and, who knows, as the Jets rise again, perhaps his online presence will too over the next few years...