New York Jets Injury Update; Rex Talks Gholston

Injury Update- On Tuesday New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan gave an injury update for the team.  It appears that most of the injured players that were held out of Sunday night’s game returned to practice with the exception of quarterback Mark Brunell.

From Rex: “Alright, so Mark Brunell, his practice status is out with the right calf. Trevor Canfield is doing well but he’s still out with the left knee. (Jeff) Cumberland, we will re-evaluate him after individual. He has a little hamstring, left hamstring. Shonn Greene, right foot. We’re going to monitor him but he will go through practice. Derrick Mason will be limited, left knee. Brandon Moore is going to be full go. Courtney Smith, right ankle, we’re going to monitor him. Obviously Rob Turner (is) out. On defense Nick Bellore had a right calf injury. He played the whole game but we’re going to re-evaluate him after individual. Marcus Dixon will be limited, that’s a left knee. Sione Pouha, left knee, limited. Bart Scott, left leg, limited. And Calvin Pace, left groin, monitor.”

It is great to hear that Brandon Moore is returning as the Jets offensive line is now intact as the team heads into the regular season.  The Brunell injury is somewhat concerning as you would like to see the veteran get at least a few reps before the season starts.  I understand and appreciate the respect the Jets have for Mark’s ability, but at some point you have to show it on the field in live action.

Rex reacts to Gholston’s comments- On Tuesday Rex Ryan responded to comments made by former Jet Vernon Gholston.

On Vernon Gholston’s comments about Ryan pre-judging him…

Maybe that’s a possibility. I’m certainly not perfect. That could be accurate that I pre-judged him. But trust me when I came here, I was his coach. He was one of us. I became a Jet. Obviously I evaluated Vernon when he came out of college. I wasn’t as high on him as maybe others were. But when I got here, we were all in. I wanted Vernon to be successful, and I’d still like him to be successful. I think he’s a good kid. I don’t care what he said about me. That’s fine, but I think he’s a fine young man and I wish him well.

On if he was surprised by Gholston’s comments that he wasn’t given a fair shot…

I don’t agree with him on that. Trust me, my job is not just to make one player better and to feature one player. When I came here, I thought my job was to build the best defense we could possibly build. And I think when you look at (it) statistically, whether we were successful or not, it’s hard to argue that we weren’t successful in building this defense for the betterment of the New York Jets, not just one player. Now could there have been better defenses to call to make Vernon a better player or make him look like a better player? I’m sure there are. But for us, my concern was to make the New York Jets a better defense, not just one player.

I give Rex some credit for taking the high road here.  It is time to move on from the Vernon Gholston experience.  Too much time, energy and large sums of the Jets money have already been wasted on this player.

Tomlinson discusses first two games- On Tuesday running back LaDainian Tomlinson shared his thoughts on the Jets offense the last two weeks.

On how he would assess the offense after two preseason games…

I think it’s been pretty good. The things we’re trying to focus on, particularly last game, is getting into our checks when we had that all-out blitz, the things we need to do against looks like that, to try to make people pay. The same type of stuff that we’re seeing, the eight-man box, the safeties on the line of scrimmage, it’s good for us, because it allows us to get to the checks that we need to get to. You guys saw (Sunday night), a couple of times we made them guys pay when they did that.

On the red zone offense so far…

Well, it’s a point of emphasis for us. Obviously, when we’re down there, we want to score touchdowns. Having Plaxico (Burress) is going to be a huge part for us. At the same time, we think we’re going to be more explosive down there, we’re going to be able to do a lot more things than what we have done. You can just throw it up to Plax if you want to, but also having Santonio, as quick as he is, down in the red zone, also Dustin Keller, and then we also can run the ball down there. So we should be very good (in the red zone).

On how he feels the running game has done so far…

It’s been okay. I don’t think we’re too much concerned. We’ve always been able to run the ball, so we’re not concerned with the things that happen in preseason. At the same time, you got to realize we don’t have all our runs in. We’re only doing a certain amount of runs in. These are basic runs, so I wouldn’t overdo it.

I think LT’s last comment speaks volumes.  The Jets do not have their full running attack in place during the preseason (not to mention Moore has been out).  I will not press any panic buttons about the ground game, it will be amongst the league leaders once again this year.

Tyson Rauch

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