The Play of Camp
At the end of practice, the Jets’ offense wasn’t able to cash in with point during a two-minute drill. But TE Jeremy Ruckert may have delivered the catch of camp to date, climbing the ladder to snatch a pass from Geno Smith. The connection came on a 2nd-and-15 play and covered nearly 20 yards.
“That was spectacular,” Smith said. “You know, he’s a guy who has been making plays all camp. He’s a guy who I think highly of and I think he’s always going to be there for us. He’s like a safety net. All the tight ends have done a great job at getting open and making plays, and that’s something that we appreciate from those guys. They’re kind of like the Swiss Army Knife – they can do it all. And I appreciate a guy like Jeremy going out there and making a play for me.”
Smith completed two passes on the possession – the other one going to second-year TE Mason Taylor for 11 yards. But a drop and a couple of penalties plus good Buccaneers’ defense prevented the Jets from getting deep into Tampa territory. Facing a wind gust, Jason Sanders was short from 61 yards and practice ended.
“On offense, I really want to look at what happened when it comes to that, exactly what they’re in and how do we operate in that situation,” HC Aaron Glenn said. “I was more or less thinking about our timeouts and making sure that I control the situation when it comes to that, so I want a good chance to look at that.”
Smith hit on his first five passes in team periods before a Bucs DL A’Shawn Robinson batted down his sixth attempt at the line of scrimmage. He had a couple of nice hook-ups with Taylor in the red zone including one that went for a touchdown. RB Breece Hall opened up one period inside with the 20 with a scoring run from nearly 20 yards out.
“I thought there were a lot of great plays out there that were made and I think there were also some plays we can learn from. I think whenever you face a defense, a Todd Bowles defense, he’s going to give you multiple looks,” Smith said. “There’s going to be a lot to be done at the line of scrimmage and I think that prepares us for the season.”
Rookie QB Cade Klubnik, who will appear in his first NFL preseason game Friday night, had a 50-yard TD to speedster Arian Smith. Klubnik threw the ball with a ton of loft and Smith was able to run under it and come down with the ball in the end zone.
“I thought it was great,” said Klubnik. I think being able to just go against other people is always really fun and definitely something that I wish we had in college, being able to just kind of go against some other schemes and some other personnel and things like that. I thought it was great, just really competitive. It’s a violent sport and you definitely saw that up front and it was fun. It was to be able to see our guys really attack in between the whistles and go make plays.”