The up-and-down (largely down) rookie season of Jets cornerback Dee Milliner took another turn last week, when he was benched after missing a tackle on Mike Wallace that turned into a touchdown.
That raised the question of whether he’d start this week against the Bills.
“Yep,” defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman said, via Seth Walder of the New York Daily News.
But will he finish?
“We’ll see,” Thurman replied.
“You take away that one play in the game, and he actually played a really good game. But you can’t take that one play away,” Thurman said. “And it affects his overall performance. And it affects the overall perception of him. But really, he was playing well. He had pass breakups, he actually was tackling pretty well and he misses that one tackle and it goes for a touchdown.”
The ninth overall pick in the draft has been a disappointment this year, benched three times, and missing three games because of injury.
“At that point, you’re looking for the reaction of the player,” Thurman said of last week’s benching. “And there’s times where you look at him, you look in his eyes, you say, ‘You know what this is not a good look.’ And you say ‘Let’s make the move.’ ”
The Jets need to play whatever mind games are necessary, to try to push him to a performance they think he’s capable of delivering on a more consistent basis.