Thursday morning at New York Jets training camp turned into a trench clinic, and not in the defense’s favor. The offensive line repeatedly won the line of scrimmage, pushing the defensive front around in ways that made the run game look far too easy.
That showed up early and often with Breece Hall. On one second-down snap in the green zone, Hall took a carry straight at No. 2 overall pick David Bailey and picked up a good chunk of yards.
Bailey worked a path that was far too wide, and Olu Fashanu simply kept steering him even farther outside. With nobody replacing Bailey or filling the C-gap, Hall had a clear lane off tackle.
A similar scene played out on one of the first team periods. Hall found a huge opening off the right side, with Armand Membou sealing Bailey and driving him at least five yards toward the sideline. It was the kind of rep that made the defense look stuck guessing and the offense look like it knew exactly where it was going.
The context matters here, because the Jets’ front on Thursday wasn’t the same group that has shown up in camp before. Instead of Aaron Glenn’s react-attack and odd-front looks, New York used more four-down fronts with pass-rushers.
Kingsley Enagbare was added to the injury list recently, joining Joseph Ossai and T’Vondre Sweat, and that left Bailey, Will McDonald, and Jowon Briggs working together plenty. The result was rough.
There were still a few defensive positives, and Bailey had one of them in the red zone. On a designed shovel-pass look, he stayed disciplined, kept his eyes where they needed to be, and didn’t get pulled out of position. Because he held his ground and trusted his keys, he was able to stop the play cold.
Bailey also flashed as a pass rusher once or twice against Fashanu, but not every near-miss should be counted as a sack. On one rep, the outside move took him too far around the corner, leaving Geno Smith enough room to step up.
That was pressure, maybe. A sack?
Not quite.
That’s the push-pull with Bailey right now. He can show quickness off the edge, and he can do it in a way that jumps off the field. But the moment he can do it without giving up the defense’s structure is the moment the Jets will really have something.
The receiver group had its own standout moment. Omar Cooper Jr. ran one of the cleanest routes of the day in 1v1 work, using an inside stem without overcommitting and moving with real efficiency against Samuel Womack III. The route itself was sharp from start to finish.
Cooper later had a rougher moment when he dropped a ball in the end zone. Geno Smith delivered it on time at the top of the route, and the throw came in so quickly that it hit Cooper right between the numbers and hit the turf.
Arian Smith also continued to look better in the late-adjustment area, which has been one of the quieter developments of camp. And rookie quarterback Cade Klubnik had a mixed showing: one snap featured him stepping up in the pocket like a veteran to avoid pressure, but the next part of the story was ugly, as he threw directly to a defender with the nearest target at least five yards away.
The Jets are back at it Friday morning.
In Other News...
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At a recent press conference, Smith also added a new wrinkle to his camp routine by showing up with a very noticeable pair of practice eyewear. He said the gear is part of what he is using to deal with the sun and the glare during workouts, and it did not take long for fans to notice the look and start reacting. For the Jets, it is a small detail, but the kind that tends to follow a quarterback around when he is trying to make a fresh first impression in a new setup. [Read more 🡒]