{"id":212538,"date":"2026-04-28T12:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/212538\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T12:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:25:08","slug":"love-aggression-passion-all-those-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/212538\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Love, Aggression, Passion … All Those Things\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toward the end of his introductory news conference at 1 Jets Drive on Saturday morning, the imposing TE Kenyon Sadiq<\/a>, who played for Oregon and was drafted No. 16 overall in the first round on Thursday, graciously paid a compliment to a former opposing player who will now be a teammate with the Jets — diminutive former Indiana cornerback D’Angelo Ponds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Obviously, I think that’s a great pick,” Sadiq (6-3) said of Ponds (5-9), the Jets’ second-round selection (No. 50 overall). “I think he’s the best corner I played against all year, for sure. I mean you can say he’s undersized, too, but no, he definitely doesn’t show it on the field. You know, one thing I love about his game is how much passion and speed he plays with. So it’s awesome to get a team up with him, and you know [WR Omar] Cooper as well, playing both of them twice. So, they’re great guys.”<\/p>\n

To make a third pick in the first round, Jets GM Darren Mougey traded back into the round to grab Indiana’s Cooper Jr. at No. 30, bringing together three young and promising guys who all played for winning programs in the Big Ten Conference.<\/p>\n

Sadiq, who is from Idaho Falls, was not in Pittsburgh for the draft festivities. And when his phone buzzed after the Jets selection, he was leery of answering.<\/p>\n

“That was just my biggest fear, with Shedeur [Sanders, who was prank called during last year’s draft] and all that stuff that happened with him,” he said. “It’s such a moment full of so many emotions. It’d be kind of not fun to get a prank call and stuff like that. But, no, obviously the call and everything was amazing.”<\/p>\n

It finally hit Sadiq that the call was bona fide when HC Aaron Glenn came on the call.<\/p>\n

“I mean, it was really just when I started talking to each individual coach and management and those things,” he said. “Then it really kind of hit me, ‘This isn’t a prank call, this is the real deal,’ and I was super excited.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toward the end of his introductory news conference at 1 Jets Drive on Saturday morning, the imposing TE…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[34086,82444,22597,82443,77237,85,9,11,10,12],"class_list":["post-212538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-2026-nfl-draft","tag-2026pick16","tag-draft","tag-draft-tracker-card","tag-kenyon-sadiq","tag-latest-headlines","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}