New York Jets Training Camp: Week 2 Stock Report
The New York Jets could not have expected to get the answers to all their key questions and find winners for all their key battles in the first two weeks of training camp.
That being said, those things are starting to take shape. We're roughly halfway through camp, so now seems as good a time as any to take stock of where things are headed.
Whether it's an injury, a string of strong practices or a player revealing that he is a perfect fit for his new scheme, there are players heading in every different direction at this stage in the summer.
There's some risk in day-to-day evaluation—it's easy to get caught up in the highs and lows of each day rather than to take a step back and evaluate a player's performance on the whole. With two weeks of practice in the books, we have a little more context to shed light on each player's trajectory at this stage.
Stock Up: James Carpenter
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When the Jets signed James Carpenter to be their left guard, the move was met with some skepticism. He struggled in four years with the Seattle Seahawks, so why should New York be any different?
The answer: The blocking scheme is entirely different. In fact, Carpenter called it a "dream come true" to be playing in the Jets' man-blocking scheme.
"This offense is like a dream to me—man and power blocking," said Carpenter, according to ESPN.com's Rich Cimini. "It's a dream come true for me. That's the type of lineman I am."
For four years with the Seahawks, Carpenter was miscast in a zone-blocking scheme that asked him to block on the move instead of manning up to block the lineman in front of him head-on. For a 6'5", 321-pound lineman, blocking on the move is not the best use of his traits.
Carpenter was a disappointment as a first-round pick with the Seahawks. Sometimes, a change of scenery is all a player needs to turn his career around.
Stock Down: Dee Milliner
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The first two years of cornerback Dee Milliner's career carry an asterisk due to several injuries. It appears his third NFL season is off to a similar start. He will miss the next six to eight weeks after having surgery on his wrist, according to Eric Allen of NewYorkJets.com.
It's a disheartening setback, especially considering this story from AL.com's Mark Inabinett that ran the morning of August 7 in which Milliner said he was ready to put his injury history behind him. He suffered the wrist injury later that day.
An injury is probably the last thing Milliner could afford at this stage of his Jets career. The third-year cornerback and former first-round pick isn't necessarily in a make-or-break year, but it's going to be difficult enough for him to earn playing time when he's sitting behind Darrelle Revis, Antonio Cromartie and Buster Skrine on the depth chart.
Milliner has the physical tools to succeed in Todd Bowles' aggressive man-coverage style defense, and he could be a valuable component in a rotation if he can stay healthy. Those last five words, however, are the crux of the issue.
Stock Up: Chris Owusu
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As concussion issues come more and more into the public light, we start to notice the number of concussions a player has suffered in his career. That's why it's disturbing that Chris Owusu suffered his fourth career concussion, according to Rich Cimini of ESPN.com, which is troubling for a player who is just 25 years old.
But wait, isn't Owusu in the "stock up" category?
Yes, and that's because despite his concussion, he's been listed on the second-team offense at wide receiver on the Jets' first official depth chart. Make no mistake: The depth charts are not necessarily put together with a lot of coach involvement. However, it's impossible to ignore this in conjunction with the strong camp Owusu has already been having.
The unfortunate thing is that Owusu won't be able to capitalize on a strong summer with a stronger showing in the preseason.
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Stock Down: Jace Amaro
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As mentioned in the previous slide, let's not read too much into the first depth chart of the preseason. Jace Amaro is listed as the third-string tight end, but head coach Todd Bowles said that the Jets want to "mix him up a little bit" in terms of where he's lining up:
"He's learning how to block. You don't come in here as a pass receiver out of college and have one year just learning how to block, but he puts his face in there and he does some things. (We're) moving him around a little bit. Learning different blocks right there helps enhance, hopefully, his durability by not banging every play. He can line up in there and stay in and block but it'll help his pass-catching skills a little bit partly because of the guys outside, but those are some of the things he should be able to do inside.
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Even with the growing importance of H-backs, it's hard to envision Amaro (or any of the tight ends) earning a lot of playing time in 2015. It wasn't a good start to training camp for any of the tight ends, partly because of the lack of focus on the tight ends in Chan Gailey's offense. Gailey's preference for three- and four-receiver sets takes away a lot of opportunities for tight ends to play.
For the three years that Gailey was head coach of the Buffalo Bills, tight ends only caught 153 of 961 completed passes (13.3 percent), according to Pro-Football-Reference.com. Amaro has talent worthy of a second-round selection, but the Jets' new regime may not be making as much use of him as it should.
Stock Up: Lorenzo Mauldin
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The Jets have needed a "sack fiend" since former head coach Rex Ryan first arrived on the scene. They have one promising young prospect who has yet to reach his full potential in Quinton Coples (25), and at the other spot, they are very much in transition from veteran Calvin Pace to rookie Lorenzo Mauldin.
According to Steve Serby of the New York Post, the rookie took advantage of opportunities with the first-team defense and "was hard to miss flying around the edge." There is an adjustment that needs to take place, to be sure; he's still learning the position, and he's not quite ready to unseat Pace as the starter just yet.
That being said, head coach Todd Bowles sees a lot of traits to admire in the Louisville rookie:
"The guy's hungry. He has a high motor. While he's learning what to do and learning the plays he's getting better and that's the thing you want out of your rookies. You want to get better as you learn what to do. It's not going to be sound or fundamentally or technically sound every time, but if you see the motor and the effort you can live with that. That's what he's doing.
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As long as he keeps leaving everything on the field and learning at an acceptable rate, there's nothing (besides 16 starting left tackles) standing in Mauldin's way on his path to a successful rookie season.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained via team news release.
Stock Down: Everyone Involved in the Punch
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If you haven't heard about the punch heard 'round the world by now, you've probably been knocked out for the past 24 hours.
Todd Bowles announced that Geno Smith will be out for 6-10 weeks after he suffered a broken jaw at the hands (or hand) of linebacker IK Enemkpali. The two got in an altercation over $600 owed to Enemkpali by Smith, and whether or not anyone thinks he deserved it is inconsequential at this point.
The Jets spent all offseason building a Super Bowl contender. It only took one haymaker to put them down for the count, but there's still hope for this franchise in 2015.
Bringing in another quarterback, at this juncture, just wouldn't make sense. The Jets are already two weeks into camp, and they already have three quarterbacks on the roster. Bringing in another linebacker after cutting Enemkpali is also overkill, since he was a fringe roster candidate anyway.
The only person whose stock went up in all of this is backup quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick, who will step in as the starter with Smith out. Fitzpatrick has three years of experience under Chan Gailey from their time together with the Buffalo Bills, and if he isn't ready to man the reigns of a Gailey offense at this point, he'll never be.
Unless otherwise noted, all quotes obtained via team news release.
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