kelly Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Jace Amaro, now listed as an H-back by new Jets coach Todd Bowles, catches a pass during practice in May. As the Jets get close to training camp, I am going to examine the roster and give you my top 25 players. Each weekday, we will reveal another person on the list, leading right into camp. I am not including rookies on this list because I do not feel it is possible to fully evaluate them before they play a game. No. 21 : Jace Amaro Last year’s ranking: Unranked/rookie Position: Tight end Age: 23 How acquired: Selected in the second round of the 2014 Draft Years left on contract: 3 2015 Salary Cap figure: $975,681 Looking back at 2014 : Jets fans had high expectations for Amaro, the team’s second-round pick out of Texas Tech. He put up video-game numbers for the Red Raiders, but spent much of the spring and summer adjusting to playing in a pro-style offense.I was surprised Amaro did not play more last season. He took about 34 percent of the offensive snaps. He made 38 catches for 345 yards and two touchdowns in 14 games. Amaro’s best game came in Week 6 against the Broncos, when he had 10 receptions. But that was the exception, not the rule.The biggest story of Amaro’s rookie season was the drops. He dropped six passes, many of them on easy catches. Amaro seemed to get ahead of himself every time he had an easy one, but he also made some really difficult catches. It appeared to be a mental thing, and the Jets have to hope it clears up this season. Only three tight ends had more drops than Amaro, according to Pro Football Focus. But those three were high-volume guys who were each targeted more than 120 times — Martellus Bennett, Jimmy Graham and Rob Gronkowski. Amaro was targeted just 52 times.There were a ton of questions about Amaro’s blocking ability because he rarely was asked to block in college, but I thought he fared OK. Former offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg did not put Amaro in a ton of blocking situations, but he rarely appeared to be a liability when he was asked to block and he threw some nice downfield blocks. Outlook for 2015: One of the more interesting things new coach Todd Bowles said this spring is Amaro is now considered an H-back, not a tight end. We’ll see how that designation plays out under new offensive coordinator Chan Gailey. It was hard to get much of a feel for it this spring because Amaro often practiced on the second field with the backups. Then he injured his back in the team’s final week of OTAs, which kept him sidelined for the minicamp.You would think this means Amaro will play more in the slot or on the wing and not be asked to get in a stance as an in-line tight end, something he never appeared really comfortable doing. PFF ranked Amaro 10th out of 34 tight ends in slot performance last season, so that will play to his strengths.The big sidebar for Amaro’s sophomore season will come when the Jets face the Bills and former coach Rex Ryan. Amaro made headlines this spring when he said Bowles holds the team more accountable than Ryan did. Ryan, who always claimed to have “skin like an armadillo” when it came to criticism, appeared to be genuinely annoyed by the comment and ripped Amaro several times, promising an interesting matchup when the two teams meet in November. > http://nypost.com/2015/06/30/jets-position-change-may-unlock-jace-amaros-potential/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SenorGato Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Witten 2.0 to Geno's Romo 2.0, boylemmetellya Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadetree Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 I like that, it sppears, they have him moving around and standing up . Now work on those dropsies and we have 3, big, tall targets for whomever is QBing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BurnleyJet Posted July 1, 2015 Share Posted July 1, 2015 Actually that's not a bad return considering the low snap percentage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly Posted July 2, 2015 Author Share Posted July 2, 2015 Actually that's not a bad return considering the low snap percentage. true.. now if he can just learn to catch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LIJetsFan Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 I was all for Amaro as I watched things unfolding in the 2nd round. That said I'm a bit disappointed in him so far but otoh, I do not believe MM used him correctly so there is blame to go around. I expect Bowles and his CS to straighten out a lot of the mismanagement I felt was taking place last year. So, I'm expecting Amaro to step it up this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New York Mick Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 He needs to catch the ******* ball better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sperm Edwards Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 Actually that's not a bad return considering the low snap percentage. Maybe, maybe not. I don't have the snap counts in front of me, but it would seem likely that a healthy percentage (if not a overwhelming majority) of snaps he sat out were called/planned running plays. So his numbers would have surely gotten at least a little better with 50% more snaps (had he stayed healthy), but it's also quite possible (or even likely) his gross numbers wouldn't have changed proportional to the additional percentage of snaps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sperm Edwards Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 He needs to catch the ******* ball better. No doubt, but at this stage I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that it was rookie-itis. Just thinking too much about too many things and, in doing so, taking his eye off the ball. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
New York Mick Posted July 2, 2015 Share Posted July 2, 2015 No doubt, but at this stage I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt that it was rookie-itis. Just thinking too much about too many things and, in doing so, taking his eye off the ball. At least his eyes are opened unlike Stephan Hill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly Posted July 7, 2015 Author Share Posted July 7, 2015 ya think we should try him at qb ?.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kelly Posted August 6, 2015 Author Share Posted August 6, 2015 The rap on Jace Amaro, from the moment the Jets drafted him in the second round last year, was that he couldn't block for squat. Amaro knew that and understood it, too. "Yeah, I think everyone and their moms know that I needed to block better," Amaro told NJ Advance Media after a recent training camp practice. That obvious hole in Amaro's game notwithstanding, the Jets drafted Amaro in large part last year because of his pass-catching ability. In 2013, his final year at Texas Tech, he set an FBS record for tight ends with 1,352 receiving yards, and his 106 catches were only five shy of the national record for tight ends in that category.But Amaro played in a wide-open offense in college. The NFL, as one might imagine, was a step up. He'd have to be able to block at some point. And this offseason, he took that understanding to heart. "I've been practicing it a lot," Amaro said. "Now, I feel really good about it. I'm blocking a lot better. I know my coaches have told me I've been a lot better."Jimmie Johnson, the Jets' tight end coach, told our Darryl Slater back in June that Amaro's blocking was "definitely a deficiency within his game," based on film study Johnson had done of Amaro's rookie season."He's already proven that he can run and catch the ball," Johnson told Slater at the time. "He definitely needs to improve his in-line blocking. He's been working on that. I think he has a chance to get better at that. That's probably the biggest thing—just trying to make him more of a complete tight end, more of an every-down tight end, so we don't have to, when we trot him in the game, it's a pass." Amaro also had issue with drops as a rookie. Pro Football Focus had him with six drops—tied for fourth-most among tight ends. But they also graded him 33rd as a pass blocker and 24th as a run blocker.Said head coach Todd Bowles: "As a rookie, I don't think you get to catch it all. Your second year, you kind of get an idea. Jace is working really hard on his blocking and he's done some things in the passing game. You just want to see continued progress."Which, again, is something Amaro seems to understand. The Jets have only had two padded practices. The true test of how much Amaro has improved is still to come."For me, that was the biggest emphasis," Amaro said of his blocking. "I knew that's where I lacked, and that's what I've worked on a lot." > http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2015/08/jets_tight_end_jace_amaro_eager_to_prove_he_can_bl.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetmech Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 This year should be telling.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JetBlue Posted August 6, 2015 Share Posted August 6, 2015 Didn't most of his drops happen early on? He seemed to get better as the season went on especially the last month or so of the season. I think he is going to be a big weapon for us and at this point is really under the radar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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