Plenty of football people would refuse the opportunity to have their teams featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks. Even though the team, as we understand it, retains full control over anything and everything that shows up on the air, mistakes can be made.
Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post has spotted a potentially glaring one.
Hubbuch says that, in Wednesday night’s episode, a shot of the team’s roster board reveals an “X” next to quarterback Kellen Clemens’ name. And “X” apparently marks the spot -- as in the loss of a roster spot.
The disclosure comes at a time when the Jets are believed to be hoping to trade Clemens, a second-round pick in 2006. So with Clemens possibly on the cut list, it’s highly unlikely that anyone will give up anything of value for Clemens -- unless another team wants to trade for his $1.176 million contract in lieu of trying to sign him as a free agent.
That said, we’ve watched the portion of the show that shows the team’s position-by-position roster board, and we don’t necessarily think that the information shown by Clemens means he’ll be cut.
Clemen’s name appears over a yellow background, which possibly is the designation the team uses for vested veterans. Also, there’s a red dot next to his name, but we saw no “X”.
That said, Clemens is third on the depth chart behind Mark Brunell and ahead of Kevin O’Connell. Presumably, Clemens is the most vulnerable guy, especially since O’Connell will earn only $470,000.
Along those same lines, we noticed that veteran fullback Tony Richardson -- who presumably is safe -- appears at No. 3 on the fullback depth chart. At a base salary of $855,000, it’s hard to imagine the Jets keeping him around.