" Jets Linebacker Carries New Load as Fullback " ~ ~ ~

[kelly]

 — Like many players in high school, Julian Howsare started on both sides of the ball, though for college he had to choose. The coaches at Clarion University projected him as a defensive end, so that was where he played, demoralizing quarterbacks with an array of speed rushes and spin moves.Part of him yearned to play offense again — whenever the Golden Eagles possessed the ball near the goal line, Howsare would badger the offensive coordinator, Chris Weibel, to let him run it in — but by the end of a career studded with awards and accolades, he had begun attracting interest from some N.F.L. teams.

 

One was the Jets, who, projecting him as an outside linebacker in their 3-4 scheme, signed him soon after the draft. Howsare’s intelligence, athleticism and aggressive temperament appealed to them, and it was those attributes that prompted Coach Todd Bowles to seek him out for a conversation Sunday and pose a potentially life-altering question just before defensive meetings were about to start: How would you like to play fullback ?  Of course he would, Howsare said, and the transformation began at once. He hunkered down with his tablet and started studying the offensive playbook so that he would at least know where to line up. In his locker appeared a white pinnie — the color worn by offensive players — that he would have to slip over his green jersey. While linebackers practiced their coverage skills, he huddled with the running backs, performing agility drills and catching passes and evading tackling dummies.“It’s another opportunity for me to show what I can do,” Howsare said.

 

As one of 90 players on a roster that must be whittled to 53 by Sept. 5, Howsare finds himself in the predicament of trying to make the team at a position he last played five years ago, as a senior at Altoona High School in Pennsylvania. As it has been explained to him, the switch is temporary but indefinite.The Jets still consider him a linebacker — “Make no mistake about that,” Bowles said — but they are intrigued enough by his prospects that he will take reps at fullback until further notice.“Sometimes you don’t know what you have until you take a shot at it,” General Manager Mike Maccagnan said in an interview.

 

For Maccagnan, the idea started percolating during off-season workouts, when it struck him how much Howsare looked like a fullback. Unlike taller, more linear outside linebackers, Howsare, listed as 6 feet 3 inches and 255 pounds, carries his weight through his lower body and legs. In pedigree and in size, he reminded Maccagnan of another defensive end-turned-N.F.L. fullback who played at a smaller college, James Develin of New England.“Watching him as a linebacker roll his hips and take on blockers, you start thinking of it in reverse,” Maccagnan said of Howsare. “If he’s a fullback and going into the line of scrimmage and uncoiling on contact, he had the flexibility and athletic ability.”The fullback’s role has changed over the years, evolving from that of a pure lead blocker — almost like an extra guard — to, as spread offenses have infiltrated the league, another pass-catching threat out of the backfield. According to Pro Football Focus, the Jets deployed a fullback on 19.1 percent of their offensive snaps last season, but Bowles said he and coordinator Chan Gailey had yet to determine how often they would use one.

 

“It’s not a natural position,” said the Jets’ likely starter, Tommy Bohanon. “It’s not natural to run 5 yards and hit a linebacker square in the face.”The running-5-yards-and-hitting part comes naturally to Howsare. He recorded 39 sacks and 57 tackles for a loss at Clarion, about 80 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, and developed a reputation as such a dogged and ferocious player that the conference rival California University of Pennsylvania started referring to him as the Chain Saw (when the Cal graduate Rontez Miles learned that Howsare had joined the team, he said, he ran around the Jets’ complex asking : “Where’s Chain Saw? Where’s Chain Saw?” until he found him). As a senior, Howsare was selected as a finalist for the award given to the best lineman — offensive or defensive — in Division II.“There was no one that could block him,” Weibel, now the head coach at Clarion, said in a telephone interview. “There was no one that would put forth the effort or match his effort on the field.”

 

It is everything else that commands a recalibration. However similar Howsare views the responsibilities, the differences greet him every time he lines up.Instead of having the freedom to pursue the ball any way he chooses, he must harness his aggression. If a guard misses a block, Howsare mustprevent the play from breaking down before he can proceed to his assignment. If the ball carrier cannot make it back to the line of scrimmage, that, in essence, is Howsare’s fault.“The hardest part is really just the flow of the game and learning how to get into the holes and get into your blocks,” said Bohanon, who switched to fullback from running back as a freshman at Wake Forest. “It’s something you definitely have to learn over a few years.”Howsare does not have a few years. He has a few weeks. The more he can do, Bowles told him, the more appealing he becomes for the Jets or potential employers elsewhere, who will determine the position that fits him best.

 

Whichever position that is.

 

> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/sports/football/jets-linebacker-julian-howsare-carries-new-load-as-fullback.html?ref=football

[AFJF]

I did see Howsare getting some time with the FB's the other day...also saw a report saying Hakim was getting work with the CB's.

[#27TheDominator]

I did see Howsare getting some time with the FB's the other day...also saw a report saying Hakim was getting work with the CB's.

 

#RexEffect

[AFJF]

#RexEffect

 

But of course

[Gastineau Lives]

This goddamn Rex playing people out of position.

 

****, I got ninja'd.