Gas2No99

'96 Ravens

LB Jerrod Mayo

I'm getting two narratives from this forum: 1) Pryor was injured BEFORE OTAs and was hiding it from the team and THUS, din't practice. 2) Pryor was injured DURING OTAs and did practice on the field at SOME point was injured early?

but do they do it as consistently?

They BOTH HAVE/HAD the same Personal Coach: Jordan Palmer!

It actually CAUSES me to DOUBT Darnold more because of that. That's what's making me annoyed right now.

Thank you for summing it up better and more efficiently.

I understand that argument. And YES, they will spackle the #2 QB with a JAG veteran like Hoyer in 2019 (Darnold should have earned the starting spot by then), but it further pulls me to the argument, made by others, that Mac may not be the right guy (I know, I know, there's a hoard of Anti-Macs out there already vehemently against him). I'm all for tagging Bridgewater. The notion that Kevin Hogan, Jacoby Brisset, Cody Kessler, and Connor Cook have started or gotten NFL snaps and Hack hasn't is absurd. It's either gross negligence or something personal by Bowles (more reason to be fired) or atrocious evaluation by Mac. I tried to look at the salvage value and reasoned AT LEAST Hack would be a sufficient CHEAP #2 QB through his rookie contract. Maybe it's a HUGE WHIFF on Mac that I'm NOW starting to realize and fathom. Yes, it's good that Mac can cut loose a bad mistake early on. Yes the Jets' Cap space is in EXCELLENT condition. YES, there's significantly better and YOUNGER talent on the roster than 4 years ago. Yes the rebuild seems to be working. Yet, I have eroding trust as the 4th season of this regime passes. Some great moves are cancelled out by some really mind-boggling ones. Thank you, I needed let that out. LOL.

So we now have 0 QBs under contract for 2019. Darnold is yet to sign, but will be our only QB signed through 2019.

he should be the 31st signed

Transition tag is worth the cost to Hedge if Darnold still needs marinating and they outright CUT Hackenberg instead of keeping him as a cheap #2 under a rookie contract.

I think that's pretty wrong. McCown, Bridgewater, Darnold, and Hack are NOT BETTER THAN: 2000 QBs: Testeverde, Ray Lucas, Chad Penington.

NFL dream drives Nathan Shepherd from factory job to Jets Once an afterthought on the NFL scouting trail, Fort Hays State became a popular destination last fall. The Division II school, which hadn't produced a draft pick since 1987, boasted a 6-foot-4, 315-pound defensive lineman with freakish skills. Word spread quickly. If you bill it, they will come -- and scouts from every team made the trek to Hays, Kansas, a long-ago frontier outpost that once served as the home of General George Custer, Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok. The new star of the Wild West show was Nathan Shepherd, whose circuitous football journey to the small school prompted the same skeptical question from every scout -- "the gold-standard question," according to assistant head coach Al McCray. "Does he love football?" McCray responded the same way every time. He repeated the question, laughed and proceeded to tell them the amazing story of the Canadian-born football player who willed his dream into reality. Shepherd, drafted in the third round by the New York Jets, made it to the NFL with a blue-collar mentality that carried him through dark times. He dropped out of college for financial reasons and worked odd jobs for two years, hoping to save enough money to get back into school. With each birthday that passed -- 20, 21 -- the odds of a happy ending grew slimmer. "Most mornings you're thinking, 'I have to go to work and this check is not doing anything to improve my life today that I can see,'" Shepherd said. "That was difficult, but you just have to keep the dream alive, knowing you're that much closer." Nathan Shepherd didn't take any shortcuts on his way to the NFL. Julio Cortez/AP Photo Shepherd grew up in hockey country in Ajax, Ontario -- suburban Toronto -- but football became his sport. He was a 205-pound high school linebacker who got by on tenacity, and it was good enough to land a roster spot at Simon Fraser University, outside Vancouver. He packed on the pounds, becoming an effective 250-pound lineman by his second year, but he dropped too much money. There are no full athletic scholarships at Canadian universities, so he was forced to withdraw. He hung around the Vancouver area, working in a plant nursery and in electrical construction, his father's trade. He sat out two football seasons, 2013 and 2014, returning to Ajax to work in a factory that made cardboard boxes for beer and soda. That wasn't fun. He worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., switching every two weeks to the graveyard shift. The hours were long and he'd come home with paper cuts on his meaty arms. "People say, 'Oh, how much time you had off,'" Shepherd said. "In my mind, I was going in six-month increments. I was just looking at very small increments of time. It just added up to a little bit longer in time." During breaks at work, he did push-ups. A lot of push-ups. We're talking 1,000 per day, the "homework" assignment he received from his personal trainer, Paul Watkins, who has known Shepherd since he was a kid. Watkins sent him motivational texts almost daily: "The day you decide not to do 1,000 push-ups is the day you decide you no longer want to go pro." Shepherd explored the junior-college route, looking at schools in California and Arizona. As an international student he ran into administrative red tape, but one of the juco coaches did him a solid, reaching out to McCray at Fort Hays State. No one on the coaching staff had heard of him, but they offered him a walk-on spot in the spring of 2015. Without so much as visiting the school, Shepherd showed up in Hays, Kansas -- 270 miles west of Kansas City, 180 miles from Wichita -- for a chance to play ball in the Mid-American Intercollegiate Athletics Association. Does he love football? Head coach Chris Brown knew he had something special during spring drills. During one morning workout the team was particularly sluggish, so he made them do jump-tuck exercises as punishment. (Squat, jump, knees to chest. Repeat.) Try this at home, and your quads will be screaming after a dozen or so. On this day, the players did 400. Shepherd, only three weeks on campus, spoke up. "I did not come to Fort Hays State University to do jump tucks," Shepherd barked at the team in his Canadian accent. "I came here to win." Just like that, the Tigers had a new leader. "He is the dude," Brown said. "Everybody here looks up to him." Shepherd quickly became the big man on campus, but he never acted like it. On a partial scholarship and still pressed for money, he worked concessions at sporting events and security at basketball games. He also was a bouncer at a local bar, and, showing his softer side, volunteered at kiddie carnivals in town. If somebody needed help moving furniture across campus, they called Big Nate, who gladly obliged. One time, Shepherd's street was underwater because of heavy rain, but that didn't stop him from helping a friend. It cost him his car. The water was so deep that when he opened the door, it gushed into his 1993 Ford Tempo, ruining the interior. Looking for new wheels, he upgraded -- slightly. He bought a 2006 Ford Focus, which currently has 175,000 miles on the odometer. Not only is the car too small for a man his size, but it's beaten up and the color (gold) is faded. It's missing a hubcap and any sort of aesthetic appeal. "The worst car of any kid on campus," Brown said with a laugh. "But that tells you a lot about him. He doesn't care about that stuff." At 24, Shepherd is a lot like his car -- relatively old, well-traveled and reliable. The phrase "shortcut" isn't part of his vocabulary. One summer, on a 100-degree day, McCray spotted Shepherd working as a groundskeeper, cutting grass and planting flowers. McCray stopped and told him he could get him a job at Walmart, where he could work in air-conditioned comfort. Shepherd politely declined. "He doesn't want handouts," McCray said. "That's not Nathan Shepherd. He's serious about taking care of business." He certainly did that on the field, compiling 27 tackles for loss and 10 sacks as a three-year starter. He averaged an impressive 80 snaps per game, playing the 80th as hard as the first, according to his coaches. Leaving nothing to chance, Shepherd also tried to impress NFL scouts off the field. When he heard a scout was coming to campus to check him out, he Googled the scout's background so he could bring it up in conversation. The scouts were blown away. Does he love football? Shepherd landed an invitation to the Senior Bowl, which proved to be a turning point. His week was cut short because of a hand injury, but he showed enough in two days of practice to create a buzz among scouts. He excelled against some of the top offensive linemen in the country, including guard Will Hernandez, who became a second-round pick of the New York Giants. Shepherd's agent, Bardia Ghahremani, was on the practice field and saw him flash a smile after a strong play in a pass-rushing drill. To Ghahremani, the smile said, "I belong." Later, Shepherd checked his phone and noticed Twitter was blowing up with reports of his exploits. "It says a lot about the man," Jets coach Todd Bowles said of Shepherd's long journey to the NFL. "He's determined to succeed no matter what he does. He carries himself that way. He works that way and I can appreciate that." Financial adviser Bryce Bordwell, agent Bardia Ghahremani, Jets rookie Nathan Shepherd and his father, Stephen Shepherd, gathered at Niagara Falls on the first day of the draft in April. Courtesy Bardia Ghahremani The Jets' hope is that Shepherd can replace Muhammad Wilkerson as a starting defensive end. At minimum, he will be part of the defensive-line rotation. This much we know: His new four-year contract for $3.4 million includes a signing bonus close to $1 million. After years of "just scraping by," as he put it, he soon will have financial security. "Now that I'm here, I feel like I'm getting the pay I deserve for all the hard work I was doing in the past," he said. After cutting grass, planting flowers, making boxes, selling hot dogs, moving furniture and working graveyard shifts -- all this while training for football -- Shepherd is ready to start a new life, less cluttered than the old one. "Football," he said, "is my only job." Canadian Imports Nathan Shepherd, selected in the third round last month, joins a group of notable Canadians selected in the NFL draft: PLAYER POS. ROUND YEAR David Onyemata DT 4th 2016 Brent Urban DL 4th 2014 John Urschel OL 5th 2014 T.J. Jones WR 6th 2014 L. Duvernay-Tardif OL 6th 2014 Danny Watkins OL 1st 2011 Orlando Franklin OL 2nd 2011 Austin Collie WR 4th 2009 Nate Burleson WR 3rd 2003 Jesse Palmer QB 4th 2001 Jerome Pathon WR 2nd 1998 O.J. Santiago TE 3rd 1997 Tim Biakabutuka RB 1st 1996 Tony Mandarich OL 1st 1989 Rueben Mayes RB 3rd 1986 Mark Rypien QB 6th 1986 Eddie Murray K 7th 1980 Roy Gerela K 4th 1969 Sources: Sportsnet.ca, ESPN

Rich Cimini ESPN Staff Writer The Jets have signed fourth-round pick Chris Herndon, a tight end from Miami. Only one draft pick remains unsigned — Sam Darnold. Share 4m Chris Herndon - TE - Jets Jets signed fourth-round TE Chris Herndon to a four-year contract. Per PFF College, Herndon caught 35-of-43 slot targets in 2017, leading all college tight ends with an 81.4% catch rate when targeted inside. Herndon tore his MCL in Miami’s regular-season finale and was unable to test before the draft. An adequate blocker and good enough athlete for an H-back role, Herndon offers some Charles Clay-like traits as a catch-first tight end. The Jets have one of the weakest tight-end corps in the league, so Herndon could get a chance to contribute early. He's still completing his recovery from his college knee injury. Source: Manish Mehta on Twitter May 21 - 2:23 PM

because there is little else out there during this downtime of the season to give you your "fix" of the Gang Green Football. $hitmini is a pusher of NY Jets "news" and speculations.