REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: Pre-Season Week Three

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK
Pre-Season Week Three
Panthers at Jets
Michele Tafoya

JETS OFFENSIVE LINE

The offensive line position that usually makes headlines in the NFL is left tackle.

But last week in New York, the talk was all about Jets veteran right tackle Wayne Hunter.  The 9th year player started all sixteen games last season but struggled.  In his pre-season debut two weeks ago against the Giants he gave up two sacks and a third that was called back due to penalty.

Last Tuesday, Hunter was dismissed from practice for personal reasons.  On Thursday, Rex Ryan benched the 31-year-old in favor of the lesser-known Austin Howard, an un-drafted player out of Northern Iowa who has been with the Jets since last November.

When I spoke with Howard at practice last Friday, he told me, “Now the hard work gets harder. By no means have I arrived.  I still need to improve every day in order to take control over the spot.  I want to be that guy that everyone on the line can trust.”

The 6-7, 333-pound tackle appeared to have passed the test on Sunday night.  Both Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez praised his play.

“I’ve always been told I have potential,” Howard told me.  “To me, potential means ‘You’re not there yet.’  My dream will be real when I’ve exceeded others’ expectations, as well as my own.  This is a great step, but by no means is it the end-all, be-all.”

Whether Howard is the starter on opening day remains to be seen.  The Jets aren’t ruling anything out.  But he he may have persuaded them with a solid performance Sunday Night.

UNPRECEDENTED COMEBACK

Often a torn ACL will end an NFL player’s career.  Two on the same knee has rarely been overcome.

This is what makes Thomas Davis’s story so remarkable.

The Panthers’ linebacker has torn the ACL in his right knee three seasons in a row.  No NFL player has ever come back after suffering three ACL tears in the same knee.

But Sunday night, Davis returned to the field as a situational linebacker for Carolina in spite of suffering a calf strain early in training camp.

The Georgia product made an impact early, blitzing on his first three plays and sacking Sanchez in the first quarter.

At halftime Panthers’ head coach Ron Rivera told me Davis’ return was “Unbelievable.  Phenomenal.”

When I met up with Davis at the Panthers team hotel in New Jersey the night before the game, we talked about his decision to attempt such an against-the-odds comeback.

The 29-year-old from Shellman, Georgia, told me that after the third ACL tear he thought his career was over.  But after conversations with his wife, Kelly, team owner Jerry Richardson, Rivera and even the team chaplain, Davis’ perspective changed.  The organization offered him the chance to come back, and after another year of intense physical rehabilitation, he did.

When I asked Davis if he had any trepidation about re-injuring the knee, he told me “Not at all.  We don’t even think that way.  Now it’s all about going out there and leaving everything on the field.”

SANCHEZ AND SANTONIO

Santonio Holmes told NBC’s Cris Collinsworth that in spite of rumors to the contrary, the Jets wide receiver never had a problem with his QB, Mark Sanchez.

Holmes’ former Jets teammate, running back Ladainian Tomlinson, tells a different story.

Tomlinson was in China when I caught up with him by phone Saturday night.

The soft spoken but direct Tomlinson told me the “dysfunctional” relationship between Holmes and Sanchez began in Week 3 of last season when Holmes had just one catch in a loss to the Raiders.  According to Tomlinson, the tension continued to boil all season.

Tomlinson believes Sanchez did his best to keep the team together, and other players and coaches tried to patch things up between the QB and WR.  According to Tomlinson, nothing worked.

In the 2011 season finale against Miami, Tomlinson said Holmes body language made it clear he wasn’t into the game.  Teammates told the  wideout, “If you don’t want to play then get out of the huddle.”

Things between Sanchez and Holmes may have been smoothed over this off-season.  But Tomlinson told me that never before in his eleven year career had he been part of a team where the quarterback and number one receiver didn’t even talk to each other.