It was one of the New York Jets’ OTA days this spring — they run together — when new defensive coordinator Gregg Williams walked past new coach Adam Gase on the practice field and casually told him, “Throwing in an odd today.”
Gase’s eyes got big, and he immediately looked for second-year quarterback Sam Darnold.wholesale cheap nfl jersey china
“So I quickly get with Sam and I’m like, ‘All right, hey, he’s going to be bringing his odd-pressure package, which is everything looks the same, you don’t know whether they’re coming or dropping or what,”’ Gase recalled last week. “So I have to teach him this stuff at a rapid pace and be constantly going over it with him, and it becomes real. It becomes a real game.”
As much of an impact as QB-guru Gase is expected to have on Darnold’s development in Year 2, the defensive guru Williams might be almost as important. Gase and Williams jaw at each other throughout the practices, both competitive and each determined to outdo the other on a given day. But amid that competitiveness, Gase believes, is something of significant value for Darnold as he learns a new offense and works to take a jump as an NFL starting quarterback.
“The amount of stuff he’s seeing with Gregg, it just keeps morphing, and they keep throwing more stuff at you,” Gase said. “And I think it’s great for a kid like this. The more you can see in a practice that’s real fast-paced, the better. Because it helps you in real time. When you’re in a game and somebody throws something real oddball at you and you’ve been getting all these types of things in practice, your brain doesn’t panic and you just kind of go through your progression. You kind of know where your outs are and where you need to go with the football.”cheap nfl jersey wholesale
The speed and success of that daily work will go a long way toward determining whether the Jets can put their tumultuous offseason in their rearview mirror once the 2019 season begins. For everything else that has gone on around here, the future of this team is tied mainly to the development of its second-year quarterback, who’s still in the early part of a learning process.
“I’ve been confident throughout OTAs, especially this year just knowing the guys,” Darnold said after Tuesday’s minicamp practice. “Obviously, it’s a little bit of a different offense than we had last year, so there’s a process in getting to know that. But I’m definitely a lot more comfortable with the guys and being in the huddle and in terms of communicating and all that kind of stuff.”
