COURTESY OF NEW YORK JETS COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT
Connor Hughes, The Athletic: (missing question open) Can you just talk about the development from Wednesday’s scrimmage where things struggled to today?
Yeah, I think we just played better, energy was really good, guys were ready to go. Yeah, it just felt better out there, that first scrimmage, that first time, trying to get drives together, whether it’s OTAs or training camp, it’s usually always kind of a struggle at first, but I felt the second go-around was good, missed a couple of throws at the end there but we were able to finish it off with a touchdown, so it was a good drive and I think we are leaving here pretty happy with where we are.
Connor Hughes, The Athletic: What are the hurdles you still believe you need to get over before the opener against the Bills?
We just need to clean up details, figure out just some things route wise, and for me, where my eyes need to be and just figuring out some footwork stuff. Other than that I feel like we are ready to go. Again, some quick fixes but definitely have to be better on the details.
Sam, what was this whole experience like here today with no fans and I know they’re pumping in music, stuff like that, what was the whole thing like?
They are pumping in crowd noise and music the whole time, it was cool. I mean it was definitely more energy than when we didn’t have any noise at practice and it was just a scrimmage, so that was nice to be able to have some type of noise and some music going there, so it was good. Obviously you miss the fans, so the fan interaction, that’s what most of us all love about this game, is to be able to entertain people and just to be able to, even after games, spending time with the fans and before games, so that’s a part that we are all going to miss, but we are definitely just going to have to adapt. But it was good, with the fan noise and the music going today, it was good.
Rich Cimini, ESPN: Sam, you open in two weeks and you really had only a handful of practices with all three starting receivers, how big of a concern is that?
It’s not a concern, we understand how limited the reps were coming in, with no OTAs, so we’ve been trying to get as many reps as possible and look at as much film and communicating to each other as much as possible.
Dan Leberfeld, Jets Confidential: Sam there was a pass during practice where you looked to one side then you tried to throw to (Chris) Hogan on a crossing route and you just missed him. Was that one of those plays you wanted back and what can you improve from there?
Yeah, I just missed him. We just got to continue to work on some of the timing routes like that and we’ll get it, we just got to throw some in practice and talk about it a little bit more, but we’ll be alright.
How do you feel with Hogan so far now that you’ve had a few more practices running with that first team?
Great, so far, we’ve been able to have an open communication on how we see things, how he sees the route and how I see him running it. So, it’s been really good just to communicate that and same goes for all of the receivers that we got so far.
