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Brian Winters: "I'm Ready"


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Jets rookie left guard Brian Winters believes 'I'm ready' as he prepares to perhaps start Monday night

 

Jets

Darryl Slater/The Star-Ledger By Darryl Slater/The Star-Ledger

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on October 03, 2013 at 4:13 PM, updated October 03, 2013 at 4:18 PM

 

 

 

 

 

Brian Winters has already made his NFL debut – sort of.

 

The Jets’ rookie left guard played one snap in the Week 3 win over Buffalo, and then returned to the sideline.

 

So if Winters does indeed start Monday night in Atlanta, he won’t technically be playing in a professional game for the first time. But for all intents and purposes, he will be.

 

Fourth-year left guard Vladimir Ducasse has struggled as the starter through four games, and the Jets are now giving Winters a shot to win the job. He received all the first-team reps in practice Wednesday and Thursday, and while coach Rex Ryan said he isn’t ready to say for sure that Winters will start against the Falcons, the situation appears to be heading that way.

 

“I feel like I’m prepared and I’m ready,” said Winters, who the Jets drafted in the third round, out of Kent State, with their fourth selection in the draft.

 

The Jets’ first three selections in this year’s draft have all played significant roles on this team, and all three began the season at starters: cornerback Dee Milliner, defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson and quarterback Geno Smith.

 

Winters has been sort of lost in the shuffle, largely because he sprained his left ankle about two weeks into training camp – a sprain of both the high (serious) and low (traditional) variety that forced him to miss the next two weeks of practice.

 

 

Star Ledger reporters talk about the Jets turnovers and their upcoming game

Star Ledger reporters Darryl Slater and Michael Fensom talk about the Jets turnovers and their upcoming game against the Falcons.

 

Winters wasn’t able to play in the first two preseason games. He played with the backups in the final two, getting 60 of 81 snaps against the Giants and 75 of 89 in the preseason finale against the Eagles.

 

Winters never saw his ankle sprain coming, as he was blocking someone in training camp and had a teammate roll up on the side of his leg – one of the most frustrating injuries for an offensive lineman.

 

“I was just more worried if it was anything serious, and thank God it wasn’t,” he said. “I just tried my hardest to come back and I didn’t want to rush anything or make anything worse. I definitely feel like it did (set me back), because coming in here and trying to prove myself, I needed as much reps and as much time as I can get. If I miss that much, it sets me back. It was hard to come back, hard to bounce back.”

 

For a rookie offensive linemen like Winters, practice reps allow him to learn the blocking schemes, but also to become familiar with the tendencies of the men playing around him.

The biggest setbacks for Winters while he was away from practice involved “going through the motions and doing everything, learning the plays, learning the blocks, learning who you’re working with,” he said. “I couldn’t experience that. Everything else I could do was just visualize. So that’s what set me back.”

 

The Jets have two eighth-year players next to their left guard – tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson and center Nick Mangold, who were first-round picks in 2006. Ferguson and Mangold are vastly different than the players Winters worked alongside at Kent State, but he wasn’t able to get used to their playing styles because he missed practice time.

 

“So it was hard to be out of that and then get back into that, especially working with the two people I’m in between,” Winters said. “They work different than other players. I had to get back in the groove with that.”

 

How are Ferguson and Mangold different than other players?

 

“Brick is obviously long so he’s got the reach,” Winters said. “He’s helping me. He can always be there right away (on a block). Nick is a very smart player so he knows what’s going to happen pre-snap, so that always helps. Each player is going to play different, so getting to know how they play and the specifics of how they play is going to be different than others.”

 

Winters wasn’t at full health in either of the two preseason games that he participated in. But he said his ankle has felt 100 percent for probably two or three weeks.

 

“It’s awesome,” he said. “I feel good.”

 

Now that he is healthy, he is better equipped to replace Ducasse. While the Jets are still expecting rookie mistakes from Winters, he is nonetheless looking forward to his Monday night debut-in-full, if it indeed happens, as most figure it will.

 

“It’s going to be a great experience,” he said when asked what the experience would be like if he starts. “I’m really excited and looking forward to it, but nothing is set in stone yet. I’m just going to continue to work and really not worry about that (whether he starts or not), but it’ll be fun.”

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Ducasse is fine as a run-blocker, and decent in pass pro.  I can live with holding calls if it keeps Geno upright; It's the false starts that are maddening...and if I recall correctly, Winters got quite a few of those in the preseason himself.  

 

Prepare for a lateral change, but with a higher upside. 

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“Nothing better than killing a deer,” said Winters. “The adrenaline rush. You can’t beat it. I’ve never experienced any more than that, your heart rate…way better than football. Anyone will tell you that.”

 

 

I never understood hunting in general but saying there's "nothing better" than killing defenseless animals makes me think this guy is a little nuts.  I guess that will help him in his new career.

 

Hunters lol.. 

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“Nothing better than killing a deer,” said Winters. “The adrenaline rush. You can’t beat it. I’ve never experienced any more than that, your heart rate…way better than football. Anyone will tell you that.”

 

 

I never understood hunting in general but saying there's "nothing better" than killing defenseless animals makes me think this guy is a little nuts.  I guess that will help him in his new career.

 

Hunters lol.. 

 

Pac, the hispanic Marisa Tomei.

 

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Pac, the hispanic Marisa Tomei.

 

 

Marisa Tomei is the Eyetalian Pac.

 

Really though..  what's enjoyable about sitting motionless in a tree for 10 hours hoping to fire a shot into some stupid deer that's foraging for food?  Then holding up it's head and taking photos as if you've accomplished some great feat?  The whole thing is ridiculous.

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Who was the bow hunting LB we had on the team a few years ago?   I hope Winters is not the same kind of bust.

 

Please, he wasn't a big enough pussy to use a bow.  He hunted boar, and he did it with just a damn knife!  I mean, sure, he was absolutely awful at football, but Anthony Schlegel could kill wild animals with the best of them.

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“Nothing better than killing a deer,” said Winters. “The adrenaline rush. You can’t beat it. I’ve never experienced any more than that, your heart rate…way better than football. Anyone will tell you that.”

 

 

I never understood hunting in general but saying there's "nothing better" than killing defenseless animals makes me think this guy is a little nuts.  I guess that will help him in his new career.

 

Hunters lol.. 

 

Rotfl, deer? That's just an a$$hole thing to say. Deer are the rats of the forest and should totally be hunted, but he's talking like they're the greatest game or something. 

 

Hopefully there's some kind of inverse relationship between the game a Jet hunts and his performance. Whatshisname hunted something so insanely badass in boar and sucked ass. Giant 6'5" 300+ pound rookie man hunts Bambi's mother for fun and HOPEFULLY doesn't suck on the field.

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I always find people who enjoy hunting a bit disturbing. it's not 1813, buy your food at the supermarket like everyone else. a gun is a great penis extender, since you'd piss yourself if you were ever that close to a bear otherwise. I'm rooting for the bear.

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Rotfl, deer? That's just an a$$hole thing to say. Deer are the rats of the forest and should totally be hunted, but he's talking like they're the greatest game or something. 

 

Hopefully there's some kind of inverse relationship between the game a Jet hunts and his performance. Whatshisname hunted something so insanely badass in boar and sucked ass. Giant 6'5" 300+ pound rookie man hunts Bambi's mother for fun and HOPEFULLY doesn't suck on the field.

 

That's funny but completely true. In Mendham where I grew up, deer take lives every year. I'm sure that's the same story in all the other wooded areas. The fact that homes went up in wooded areas, pushing out the predators, and the outlawing of guns, has made these things just like you said, rats of the forest. They are on front lawns. There is no way any deer should have the confidence to go anywhere near a front lawn. Not in their nature, they've adapted.

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I always find people who enjoy hunting a bit disturbing. it's not 1813, buy your food at the supermarket like everyone else. a gun is a great penis extender, since you'd piss yourself if you were ever that close to a bear otherwise. I'm rooting for the bear.

 

I was six feet away, face to face, from a 10 foot tall elk. I sh*t a brick, but he ran off. Wildest moment of my life, definitely more of a rush than any deer Winters is shooting from a tree.

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I always find people who enjoy hunting a bit disturbing. it's not 1813, buy your food at the supermarket like everyone else. a gun is a great penis extender, since you'd piss yourself if you were ever that close to a bear otherwise. I'm rooting for the bear.

 

Face to face a bear has a slight size advantage. OTOH, **** people who actively hunt bears. 

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I always find people who enjoy hunting a bit disturbing. it's not 1813, buy your food at the supermarket like everyone else. a gun is a great penis extender, since you'd piss yourself if you were ever that close to a bear otherwise. I'm rooting for the bear.

 

I enjoy hunting. I enjoy hunting the most dangerous game of all......

 

bachelor-pad-2-target-game.jpg

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Please, he wasn't a big enough pussy to use a bow.  He hunted boar, and he did it with just a damn knife!  I mean, sure, he was absolutely awful at football, but Anthony Schlegel could kill wild animals with the best of them.

 

 

LOL.  That's right!  Forgot about the knife.

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Marisa Tomei is the Eyetalian Pac.

Really though.. what's enjoyable about sitting motionless in a tree for 10 hours hoping to fire a shot into some stupid deer that's foraging for food? Then holding up it's head and taking photos as if you've accomplished some great feat? The whole thing is ridiculous.

The delicious meat? One could say the same thig about us: who spends hours on end both talking about and watching grown men play a child's game that has no bearing on their lives? It's all relative man.

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The delicious meat? One could say the same thig about us: who spends hours on end both talking about and watching grown men play a child's game that has no bearing on their lives? It's all relative man.

 

You'll get no disagreement with me there..  the amount of time I spend on this board is a disgrace. 

 

I just don't understand the whole hunting dynamic.  It's not a particularly fair fight.  Maybe if the hunter yelled into a bullhorn "hey you stupid m'fer look out here it comes" before shooting I'd feel a little differently.  Give that dumb 4 legged freak a chance to run for it's life.

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“Nothing better than killing a deer,” said Winters. “The adrenaline rush. You can’t beat it. I’ve never experienced any more than that, your heart rate…way better than football. Anyone will tell you that.”

 

 

I never understood hunting in general but saying there's "nothing better" than killing defenseless animals makes me think this guy is a little nuts.  I guess that will help him in his new career.

 

Hunters lol..

It is a lot of fun but I'd rather go elk or moose hunting.

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