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A Few Things Are Falling Into Place


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A Few Things Are Falling Into Place

By Lisa Zimmerman on 06. Aug, 2010

CORTLAND–After all of the colorful updates from this morning, here’s some real news. In addition to guaranteeing Vernon Gholston a roster spot, Rex Ryan said that Mike Devito has won a starting job. Devito was signed as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Maine in 2007 and he has improved steadily each year. Now he’s getting the payoff.

The team will use a four-man rotation up front on defense, which is one of the reasons they picked up Jason Taylor. They want to have the ability to have relatively fresh players through the fourth quarter. Both Vernon Gholston and Ropati Pitoitua will be a part of that and Ryan expects both to get significant playing time.Nick Folke who had some interesting kicks during OTAs has sorted things out. According to special teams coach Mike Westhoff, they changed the way he was aligning himself on his kicks and that has made all the difference. Ryan agrees that he’s happy with Folke and has no lingering reservations.

As for the closely watched battle for left guard, Ryan said that right now Matt Slauson has the edge. That makes sense given that Slauson has a year in the system under his belt and Vlad Ducasse is still quite raw. However, I was hearing earlier that Ducasse had the edge so this one might take a while to finally sort itself out. As for my own opinion, I was leaning with Ducasse, but when you hear the head coach say something different, maybe you have to give that a little more credence. And the chatter amongst my people in the press box is that most are leaning toward Slauson to win the job.

The fullback situation is rather interesting. On the one hand you have rookie John Conner who looks great and who Ryan loves. On the other you have 16-year veteran Tony Richardson. Will the team actually carry two fullbacks? Conner (who is an absolute pleasure to talk to by the way) is getting a lot of tutoring from Richardson and is thrilled. “I’m honored to be learning from a guy like Tony,” he said. “This is a great situation for me.”

Didn’t mention this morning because I wasn’t sure if it mattered at the time, Laveranues Coles came limping off the field after a play, this morning favoring his left leg. However, after walking around on it a bit he went back onto the field shortly thereafter. He didn’t seem to be 100% but I wasn’t sure if it was just a lingering ding. He looked pretty much back to normal this afternoon, but I’ll keep an eye on it.

An injury that not only do I keep forgetting to note, but nobody remembers to ask Ryan about, is that Martin Tevaseu has had his hand wrapped up like a huge club for the last couple of days. Obviously he’s got a broken hand or finger, but need to confirm.

By the way, as Jenny Vrenas of the Star-Ledger first reported late yesterday, nothing is wrong with Steve Weatherford, they were just resting him. He punted in both practices today.

Tomorrow’s schedule is only for a 6:00 p.m. evening scrimmage.

Check out SNY’s Geico Sportsnite tonight for a look at the Jets wide receiver corps

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A Few Things Are Falling Into Place

By Lisa Zimmerman on 06. Aug, 2010

CORTLAND–After all of the colorful updates from this morning, here’s some real news. In addition to guaranteeing Vernon Gholston a roster spot, Rex Ryan said that Mike Devito has won a starting job. Devito was signed as an undrafted free agent out of the University of Maine in 2007 and he has improved steadily each year. Now he’s getting the payoff.

The team will use a four-man rotation up front on defense, which is one of the reasons they picked up Jason Taylor. They want to have the ability to have relatively fresh players through the fourth quarter. Both Vernon Gholston and Ropati Pitoitua will be a part of that and Ryan expects both to get significant playing time.Nick Folke who had some interesting kicks during OTAs has sorted things out. According to special teams coach Mike Westhoff, they changed the way he was aligning himself on his kicks and that has made all the difference. Ryan agrees that he’s happy with Folke and has no lingering reservations.

As for the closely watched battle for left guard, Ryan said that right now Matt Slauson has the edge. That makes sense given that Slauson has a year in the system under his belt and Vlad Ducasse is still quite raw. However, I was hearing earlier that Ducasse had the edge so this one might take a while to finally sort itself out. As for my own opinion, I was leaning with Ducasse, but when you hear the head coach say something different, maybe you have to give that a little more credence. And the chatter amongst my people in the press box is that most are leaning toward Slauson to win the job.

The fullback situation is rather interesting. On the one hand you have rookie John Conner who looks great and who Ryan loves. On the other you have 16-year veteran Tony Richardson. Will the team actually carry two fullbacks? Conner (who is an absolute pleasure to talk to by the way) is getting a lot of tutoring from Richardson and is thrilled. “I’m honored to be learning from a guy like Tony,” he said. “This is a great situation for me.”

Didn’t mention this morning because I wasn’t sure if it mattered at the time, Laveranues Coles came limping off the field after a play, this morning favoring his left leg. However, after walking around on it a bit he went back onto the field shortly thereafter. He didn’t seem to be 100% but I wasn’t sure if it was just a lingering ding. He looked pretty much back to normal this afternoon, but I’ll keep an eye on it.

An injury that not only do I keep forgetting to note, but nobody remembers to ask Ryan about, is that Martin Tevaseu has had his hand wrapped up like a huge club for the last couple of days. Obviously he’s got a broken hand or finger, but need to confirm.

By the way, as Jenny Vrenas of the Star-Ledger first reported late yesterday, nothing is wrong with Steve Weatherford, they were just resting him. He punted in both practices today.

Tomorrow’s schedule is only for a 6:00 p.m. evening scrimmage.

Check out SNY’s Geico Sportsnite tonight for a look at the Jets wide receiver corps

Great.... Now we'll have another holdout!!! LOL

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