One of the oldest football moves in the book is signing a discarded player from a future opponent and pumping him for information about what the team might be doing in practice.
With all the hubbub around the Jets’ unrevealed offensive plans regarding Tim Tebow and the Wildcat/read option/Wing-T whatever this summer, it seemed possible that one of the Jets castoffs would land with an early opponent to fill them in on what’s going on behind the scenes.
There’s not much sign of that happening so far. The Colts, who play the Jets in Week Six, claimed nose tackle Martin Tevaseu off of waivers and the Rams, who don’t play the Jets until Nov. 18, claimed running back Terrance Ganaway and traded for tackle Wayne Hunter. Other than that, though, no one fell all over themselves to get a glimpse inside the thoughts of offensive coordinator Tony Sparano.
That’s not that surprising. Watching tape of Sparano’s Dolphins teams, past Jets dalliances with the Wildcat and Tebow’s film from Denver is probably going to give you a pretty solid idea of what the Jets have in store and teams will now get to see the Jets in action. Sunday’s brief cameos from the Tebow offense did nothing to make it seem like there’s something really exotic coming down the pike and certainly didn’t offer any suggestion that you’d need some kind of inside information in order to come up with a defensive strategy for stopping it.
Perhaps there’s still something under wraps that will change that impression, but, based on Sunday, there seems to be just as good a chance that Mark Sanchez makes the need for any offensive misdirection unnecessary.