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The Official Shonn Greene / Play This Beast Thread


jaspegs

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No one is considering the concern for the Jets FO might be Leon and not Jones?

Jones is getting cut next year; that's pretty much a given. Leon is a free agent next year & even though they've been talking for some time now, the Jets have not locked him up yet.

The Jets are re-signing Leon, Sperm. You know that as well as EVERYONE else does.

No chance they don't re-sign Leon. Come on now...

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No one is considering the concern for the Jets FO might be Leon and not Jones?

Jones is getting cut next year; that's pretty much a given. Leon is a free agent next year & even though they've been talking for some time now, the Jets have not locked him up yet.

If our front office lets Leon go Tanny will be shot.

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The Jets are re-signing Leon, Sperm. You know that as well as EVERYONE else does.

No chance they don't re-sign Leon. Come on now...

If he wants Jones-Drew money as was rumored they're not re-signing him & should not re-sign him. And I friggin' love Leon but he's not worth $7-8M/yr.

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This article was written a week ago, I really enjoyed it and that was when I hopped on the Greene bandwagon. I'm really pumped to have him on our team, although I do not agree with the moving up for him and losing our 4th round pick. Hopefully we can send Jones somewhere for a 3rd or 4th today.

Iowa running back and Sicklerville native Shonn Greene ready for a new load in the NFL

by Brendan Prunty/The Star-Ledger

Sunday April 19, 2009, 8:00 AM

Every time he would finish unloading an order onto the storeroom floor at McGregor's Furniture in Coralville, Iowa, the comments would come like clockwork from the customers.

Hey aren't you that guy? Yeah, it is you. You're Shonn Greene, right? The Iowa running back. Man, you really ran great against Purd--

That's where he would stop them, quietly shaking his head and tell them they were mistaken. For the entire summer of 2007, Greene would encounter the flicker of recognition, only to shoot it down and retreat into the warehouse. Calvin Taylor didn't let it go that easily, wanting to know why Shonn Greene didn't want to be Shonn Greene.

"I asked him, 'Why don't you want to tell anybody?'" said Taylor, a supervisor at McGregors. "And he just said, 'Because I just want to do my job.'"

His job was supposed to be shredding the Michigan defense. Bursting through the Ohio State secondary. Getting the tough yards against Wisconsin. Instead, because he let his grades suffer so badly, his job consisted of loading La-Z-Boys in and out of trucks and setting Ashley living room sets up at ''Iowa's furniture leader!'' for $8 an hour.

And it made the nearly 1,000 miles between his South Jersey home in Sicklerville and Iowa City, Iowa, seem so much farther.

That's why Shonn Greene never wanted to be Shonn Greene. He just wanted to be another employee. He knew what he had to do to get back to major college football and wanted to keep to himself. Another guy who punched a timecard.

Now, two years later, he's about to punch something else: a ticket to the NFL. When commissioner Roger Goodell officially opens the 2009 Draft on Saturday, Greene will be sitting at home in Sicklerville with his family waiting for the phone call that will change his life.

"I consider him the Rudy of Iowa," said Rebecca Fried, the service warehouse manager who hired Greene at McGregors. "Just having to work to get where he is, it's the comeback story. He knew what he needed to do and he did it. And it's nice to see that he has made it."

DEFLATING EXPERIENCE

For as long as he could remember, Shonn Greene was always the star. The kid who, even in Pop Warner ball, exhibited greatness with every juke or stiff-arm. And when he became a standout at Winslow Township High School in Camden County, the legend only grew.

He rushed for 4,266 yards and 43 touchdowns in high school, leading Winslow to the Group 4 semifinals as a junior. Eventually he received scholarship offers from Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Syracuse, Clemson and Rutgers.

He chose the Hawkeyes but started to get phased out of the running back rotation early in his college career while another South Jersey product -- Albert Young -- became Iowa's No. 1 running back. Greene didn't know how to react, and his slide began. His grades fell off so badly that he was ruled academically ineligible for the 2007 season.

"I was like, 'Okay, where do I go from here?'" Greene remembered last week. "I didn't know. I've been playing football since I was a little kid, so that's all I knew. I was kind of lost in the midst of everything."

So in the summer, Greene sat down with Hawkeyes coach Kirk Ferentz and worked out a plan for him to get his grades up and possibly return to the university in 2008.

"Basically he let his academics slide a little bit," Ferentz said. "The decision came down that he wouldn't be allowed to enroll. But he never blamed anybody but himself. He took full accountability for letting it happen and more importantly went to work in finding a solution so he could get back to school."

That required Greene taking classes at Kirkwood Community College, also in Iowa City, but unlike at Iowa where he was on full scholarship, he quickly found out that he would have to pay his way through. That's where the job at McGregors came in.

"I think it just showed his perseverance," his father, Reginald, said. "He could have said, 'To heck with it,' and gone on and done something else. But that's what he wanted to do since he was 7."

PROVIDING A BIG LIFT

Taylor remembers Greene's first day at work at McGregors.

"He came in, and we were listening to the radio in the warehouse and they were talking about him," Taylor said. "It was kind of awkward, but he didn't seem to mind. He just kept working. Didn't comment or nothing."

As the pages flipped off the calendar and time began to stretch into the heart of football season, Iowa football was all around Greene. He didn't want to talk about it much with his coworkers, but he didn't want to ignore it either. So when the team was on the road, he would pick up a Saturday shift -- which surprised the warehouse staff, because Saturday was game day.

"It was very difficult," Greene said. "... They were out there playing games, and I was at work, so I tried to use that to motivate me to focus on what I needed to get done to get back to where they were."

So when Saturdays rolled around and his coworkers wanted to listen to the game on the radio, Greene didn't object.

McGregors is a place where the regular employees are used to seeing Iowa Hawkeyes lifting crates or carrying couches. For the better part of the past decade, Fried has had a number of players come in for summer jobs before training camps start. That group includes former Hawkeyes safety Bob Sanders, who has become an All-Pro and was the 2007 NFL Defensive Player of the Year with the Indianapolis Colts.

But Greene's situation was different. He had no interest in being a celebrity on break from football workouts, but was instead focused on taking his spot as just another guy in the warehouse. That was a refreshing change for his coworkers.

"Some of them wouldn't show up for work, some would only work two hours or something like that," Taylor said. "We would have tickets to do and one order is a whole ticket -- like there would be a living room set to put together. You never had to tell him twice what to do. You'd come in and there he was, doing his work.

"We would kid around with him, when we were unloading trucks, too. We'd get about halfway or three-fourths of the way done unloading it, and we would have this joke where we would yell: 'Shonn on the 20-yard line!' and he would carry the rest of the stuff in the truck out. We always said, 'Give Shonn the couch on the 20 and let him carry it the rest of the way.'"

DRIVEN AND CONSISTENT

Once Greene got his chance to put on an Iowa uniform again last season, there was no stopping him.

He rushed for the second-most yards in the nation -- his 1,850 were surpassed only by fellow New Jersey native Donald Brown of UConn -- and scored 20 touchdowns. As Iowa completed a 9-4 season and a bowl win, Greene was the only running back in the country to rush for more than 100 yards in every game. He gained Heisman Trophy consideration and won the Doak Walker Award as the nation's top running back.

"It all came down to my willpower," Greene said. "I had to know that this is what I wanted to do, because all I knew was football. And I knew I didn't want to do anything else. It wasn't hard for me to keep on the gas pedal."

He had finally gotten to where he had always wanted to be: at the doorstep of the NFL.

The strong consensus is that he'll get drafted anywhere from the second to fourth rounds, but nothing is ever certain in the NFL Draft -- especially for running backs with only one full year of work on their resume.

"He's not worried about where he's going or who's going to get him," his father said. "He just wants the chance for somebody to draft him and for him to show them. To him, he still has a lot yet to prove."

After all of the peaks and valleys of his football career, all of the furniture sets carried out and set up and all of the Saturday afternoons listening to Iowa play on the radio while he got his life back together, Greene will have made it. He won't have to shy away from people recognizing him.

And next weekend when that phone rings, he'll be happy to say, "Yes, this is Shonn Greene."

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If he wants Jones-Drew money as was rumored they're not re-signing him & should not re-sign him. And I friggin' love Leon but he's not worth $7-8M/yr.

$4 million per, tops.

They will wait out this season I guess and hope he comes to his senses...

Also he needs to think about the money he will lose this season by not inking a new deal now...

He is going to give up millions this season if he waits for a higher offer...

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If he wants Jones-Drew money as was rumored they're not re-signing him & should not re-sign him. And I friggin' love Leon but he's not worth $7-8M/yr.

I hear ya Sperm,,which is why Tate is perfect pick,,he is best punt ret/ko guy out there before injury,,he replaces Leon IF a) leon leaves or B) jets want to not risk leon forever on returns..

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$4 million per, tops.

They will wait out this season I guess and hope he comes to his senses...

Also he needs to think about the money he will lose this season by not inking a new deal now...

He is going to give up millions this season if he waits for a higher offer...

If he waits until the end of the season he only loses money if he get injured. The Jets could get him for less (in theory) because he's under contract for very little in 2009. The time to lock him up was before March 1st. Guess they were too worried about Thomas Jones' reaction if they did.

BUT...this should give the team more leverage with Leon, given the likely ceiling on his season-total numbers for 2009 with Green & Jones also on the roster.

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If he wants Jones-Drew money as was rumored they're not re-signing him & should not re-sign him. And I friggin' love Leon but he's not worth $7-8M/yr.

How much other bullsh1t has been "rumored?"

Leon will be a NY Jet for the foreseeable future. He'll get a deserved $5M or so per year and will certainly remain a Jet.

0% chance Leon plays a down for anyone else but the Jets in the next 5-6 years.

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They will fill those needs... no everything is as simple as it looks... RB is a need because it looks like TJ is forcing his way out of town...

We have one pick left in the 6th round...

This draft is over, sir.

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So the Jets have no more picks after getting Shonn Greene?

We have a 6th and already used our 5th to acquire Lito Sheppard.

So thus far we've got a potential franchise QB, a starting-caliber and maybe even a starting RB, and a starting CB.

Nobody can complain.

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I hear ya Sperm,,which is why Tate is perfect pick,,he is best punt ret/ko guy out there before injury,,he replaces Leon IF a) leon leaves or B) jets want to not risk leon forever on returns..

Not to diminish how great Leon is with the ball in his hands, but who has been a bad kick returner for the Jets since we got Westhoff?

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One of the picks was a mid-to-late 7th rounder. Stop it. A guy you pick there is no different than a non drafted free agent that you sign after the draft.

We gave up a 4th but obviously this is the guy we want, and with our OLine, this is a good move. This kid will plow through the holes our OLine creates. No *****-footing like TJ.

I am more concerned with the 4th:

2008 - 4 14(113) Dwight Lowery CB San Jose State

2006 - 4 6(103) Brad Smith WR Missouri

2006 - 4 20(117) Leon Washington RB Florida State

2005 - 4 22(123) Kerry Rhodes DB Louisville

2004 - 4 12(108) Jerricho Cotchery WR North Carolina State

The Browns accepted one 6th round pick to slide down in the 1st, twice!

We gave up two picks to move up in the 3rd!

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If he waits until the end of the season he only loses money if he get injured. The Jets could get him for less (in theory) because he's under contract for very little in 2009. The time to lock him up was before March 1st. Guess they were too worried about Thomas Jones' reaction if they did.

BUT...this should give the team more leverage with Leon, given the likely ceiling on his season-total numbers for 2009 with Green & Jones also on the roster.

Leon will lose money by waiting...

He only makes 535k in salary this season...

If he inks a 4 million per deal with the JETS he will get a SB and million more THIS season...

My point is that he will not recoup the difference in this years salary if he plays for 535k this year...

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We have a 6th and already used our 5th to acquire Lito Sheppard.

So thus far we've got a potential franchise QB, a starting-caliber and maybe even a starting RB, and a starting CB.

Nobody can complain.

Yeah, okay. This is your first day here, right? Welcome to JetNation. No nudity or politics or religion please.

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We have a 6th and already used our 5th to acquire Lito Sheppard.

So thus far we've got a potential franchise QB, a starting-caliber and maybe even a starting RB, and a starting CB.

Nobody can complain.

Thanks for clearing that up, I like the Greene pick but this team needs depth on both lines and still need a WR. Maybe we get somebody after the cuts.

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