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The majority of the first week is spent ensuring players don't hit each other and cause any injuries, however at the end of the week you have the goal-line situation where players have no choice but to mix it up a little bit. As expected it was the defense who came away with all the bragging rights.
With the ball placed at the three yard line, the defense stuffed the run on all four occasions, with Rex Ryan singling out Muhammad Wilkerson for special praise:
"Big Mo was impressive to say the least," he said of DE Muhammad Wilkerson. "With that defensive line, you have to create a new line of scrimmage or you're not going to be able to stop people. I thought last year we struggled on defense. They were able to run the ball down there on us some. We have to get better at that. Hopefully, today was an indication that we will."
We didn't seem to be as physical last year as you would hope in situations like that, but Wilkerson was pretty consistent. It's good to see that they came out on top in that situation, especially when you consider that the Jets running back situation is extremely light at the minute. Ivory missed out with a hamstring injury, Goodson is obviously still not in camp, McKnight left with an injury, so we were running with Bilal, Griffin and Chad Spann, so if the defense had of struggled there would have been a problem. Although of course in short yardage situations like that, it's mainly on the offensive line to get the push.
However it wasn't all bad for the Jets offense, we may not have been able to punch it in on the ground, but we did get some success in the air with both Geno Smith and Mark Sanchez finding a receiver in the end-zone for a touchdown. Geno rolling out and hitting TE Konrad Reuland and Sanchez finding Hayden Smith.
Unfortunately the Jets experienced another injury as impressive back-up rookie center Dalton Freeman was carted off with a leg injury, no news on the extent of the injury, but when you leave on a cart, it is usually bad.
As far as the QB's go, as we know everyone is loving this competition. Geno Smith went 3-3 with two touchdowns and two sacks, Sanchez went 3-6 with 1 touchdown and 1 sack.
Quick Notes
- Rex gave special praise to Stephen Hill who had another good practice on Friday, beating 1st round corner Dee Milliner on a couple of occasions. Hill is having a very good camp apart from one bad drop, exciting to hear his progress.
- Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow had a rest day on Friday, and Peterman is still out with a shoulder injury.
- Brian Winters performed well in one-on-one drills, standing up Garay.
- Ricky Sapp had several sacks on Friday, he's putting together a very nice camp and getting Rex's attention.
- It's Green/White scrimmage tonight, it seems as though both Geno and Sanchez will get reps with the firsts.