Jets running back Joe McKnight had the right idea.
After hearing that he would be featured in Wednesday’s episode of Hard Knocks, he refused to watch. But that didn’t prevent him from hearing all about it.
“McKnight also said sternly that he had been told every word in the show that was said about him. Not a fun topic for the rookie,” Bart Hubbuch of the New York Post wrote Thursday.
We can imagine. McKnight looked tentative, ineffective, and not terribly interested in being a pro football player at times. He struggled mentally to keep up.
“I don’t know if he’s here or not,” McKnight’s position coach said about him.
Rex Ryan screamed at McKnight from the sidelines during the preseason game to “stop tiptoeing” and to “drop your nuts.”
Basically, the kid looked like a disaster and we’d wonder about his spot on the roster if the Jets had any viable alternatives for the No. 3 running back job. While we’re here, a few more highlights from last night’s episode:
1. Bart Scott said McKnight is probably just pissed because he had to take a paycut after playing at USC.
2. Mark Brunell said he wouldn’t introduce Mark Sanchez to his 18-year-old daughter: “I like the kid, but not that much.”
3. Rex Ryan was very confident in LaDainian Tomlinson’s abilities behind closed doors, sarcastically listing everything LT2 wasn’t supposed to be able to do. “I love being right,” Ryan said.
4. Ryan continually said Vernon Gholston’s “nuts were dropping” in front of his very eyes. Then the coaches talked about arranging for Gholston to get into a fight to bring his toughness out. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Ryan said when talking about staged fights.
(And yes, the fight went off the next day.)
5. Mark Sanchez struggled with his confidence in meetings rooms and during the preseason opener. “Heck of a way to start the year,” Sanchez said after throwing an interception on his first preseason pass.
Mark Brunell’s response:"That’s not the year. It’s preseason.”