Given Second Chance, Jets Linebacker Maybin Thrives

“He’s definitely a loud guy,” Josh Mauga, another Jets reserve linebacker, said with a smile Friday. “I don’t think he has a whisper.”

The Jets picked up Maybin on Aug. 17 after he was waived by the Buffalo Bills, who took him in the first round of the 2009 N.F.L. draft with the 11th overall pick. Maybin, referred to as Maybe by disappointed Bills fans, could not squeeze onto the Jets’ roster, either.

Three games into the season, Rex Ryan was looking to improve his team’s pass rush, so he took one more chance on Maybin. Maybin has made Ryan look smart. In 32 total defensive snaps in the last three games, Maybin has two sacks and three forced fumbles, tied for the league lead.

Maybin forced two fumbles Monday in the Jets’ 24-6 victory over Miami. He said he had not changed anything about the way he was playing from either Buffalo or his first time with the Jets, but he looks different to the coaches.

“He’s a passionate guy, and his motor is running,” Ryan said Friday. “He made a great play a couple of weeks ago. He’s on the ground, gets back up, forces the fumble about 15 yards downfield. He’s playing with a relentless motor, and he’s playing fast. Sometimes, you know, it just clicks.”

The defensive coordinator Mike Pettine said this week that Maybin may understand the Jets’ defense — and his role in it — better than he did in training camp. He may be more committed to learning the defense this time around.

Maybin weighs 228 pounds, relatively light for a linebacker, and his job, for now, is to rush the quarterback. Against the Dolphins, he played just 19 defensive snaps.

“I can’t really speak on what happened in Buffalo, but he’s a guy I think may have matured some,” Pettine said. “And I think just putting him into certain roles and not exposing him to too much, I think, will be good for us early on. Then, as I think he becomes more and more comfortable, we’ll see him on the field more.”

Jamaal Westerman has replaced Bryan Thomas, who will miss the rest of the season with a torn Achilles’ tendon, as one of the starting outside linebackers. Ryan said Friday that he would like to use several players at the position, “almost like a platoon situation in the outfield.”

Maybin is just happy to have another opportunity to play. Even after the Bills and the Jets cut him in less than a month, he thought he would get a chance to play somewhere.

“I’m attacking this opportunity very hard,” he said. “But that’s always just been the way I’ve played. Anybody who’s ever watched me play, whether it’s high school, college or now, they’d be able to say the exact same stuff. I’ve always been a extra-hype guy, a high-energy guy, a high-motor guy.”

When told Pettine’s comment that he seemed like a different player, Maybin said, “Maybe it’s an indication that they think I’m a little more focused, but that’s something I’ve always done.”

He, too, is disappointed with how his two years in Buffalo turned out. After signing a five-year, $25 million contract with the Bills ($14 million of it guaranteed), Maybin, from Penn State, had only 24 tackles and no sacks in 27 regular-season games.

Maybin was referred to as a bust. Asked if the experience might have been the best thing that could have happened to him, Maybin frowned and said, “That would be the easy thing for me to say, but it would be a lie.”

He added: “It was a humbling experience; it was an experience that after I had gone through with it, I was stronger for having gone through it. But was it something that needed to happen, or something I felt was necessary? I couldn’t say that.”

After playing the San Diego Chargers on Sunday, the Jets will have a bye, then will play Maybin’s former team twice in three weeks. Maybin said he would also be lying if he said he was not looking forward to those games.

But he added: “I don’t hold contempt for the Buffalo Bills, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, my time was a learning experience, and it taught me a lot about myself and the adversity I’ve had to fight back from.”

View the original article here

Giants intern given some face time with defense

Published: September 20th, 2011 | Tags: Ryan Brown, Michael Boley, New York Giants, St. Louis Rams

Giants video intern Ryan Brown found himself a little too close to the action Monday night at MetLife Stadium.

Giants LB Michael Boley returned a Rams fumble 65 yards for a touchdown in the second quarter, then felt the need to celebrate. So he fired the ball out of the end zone — and into an unsuspecting Brown’s face.

nfl.use('nfl-video', function (Y) { var video = new Y.NFL.Video.Player({ srcNode: "#video-player-09000d5d82267190", align: "right", contentId: "09000d5d82267190", related: "home", adSetting: "1", dartURL: "http://ad.doubleclick.net/pfadx/nfl.special/blog/home;s1=blog;s2=home;slot=inpage;nfl=ad;tile=3;sz=640x360;ord=?", playerName: "blog_small_embedded", render: true, size: "inline", uniqid: "09000d5d82267190"});});

ESPN’s cameras revealed Brown, donning a white Giants jacket and a backpack, studiously observing the game-changing play — but in the way a fan would, nowhere near ready for Boley’s bullet (which impressed Panthers QB Jimmy Clausen enough for him to tweet, “Got too excited and hit the guy in the face w the ball!! Lol”).

Brown wasn’t injured, but he was a little red-faced — literally.

“I’ve been getting blown up all night on Facebook,” he told The Star-Ledger after the Giants’ 28-16 victory.

When Boley found out about the incident after the game and learned that Brown was fine, he had a laugh about it. And according to an NFL Network producer, Boley later hugged Brown in the Giants’ locker room.

Welcome to the NFL, kid.

– Marc Sessler

Posted in: Around The Web   comments    

Comments may be no longer than 2000 characters and will post to the site shortly after submitting.

View the original article here

Cowboys given good news on Felix Jones

Published: September 19th, 2011 | Tags: Felix Jones, Dallas Cowboys

The prognosis looks good for Cowboys RB Felix Jones, according to a league source.

Jones suffered a separated shoulder during Sunday’s overtime victory over the 49ers but was able to come back in the game, finishing with nine rushes for 25 yards and one reception for 5 yards. He has since been re-evaluated, and the test results came back with good news.

The team believes Jones will be fine, though he’s obviously in serious discomfort and will have to manage the pain throughout the week as the Cowboys prepare to play the Redskins.

Posted in: Jason La Canfora   comments    

Comments may be no longer than 2000 characters and will post to the site shortly after submitting.

View the original article here

Cutler should have been given benefit of the doubt

If anyone should be given the benefit of the doubt about playing through adversity of a physical nature, it should be Jay Cutler.

Cutler is a guy who battles Type 1 diabetes and takes insulin shots every single day. He even played the entire 2007 season without knowing he suffered from it, losing 33 pounds in the process. No one gave him the benefit of the doubt then, and it turned out he was playing with a lifelong disease that many of us have little idea of what it entails. Cutler fought, played through it and came back to have a Pro Bowl season in 2008.

I think a lot of us don’t know Cutler because he doesn’t often let us in to who he is as a person. If you want to criticize him for that, then go ahead. But when you don’t have enough information about someone, you can’t fairly critique or understand them.

I’ve sat and talked to Cutler about his diabetes, and he shared with me what he went through. If anyone would take the time with Cutler, they would understand he’s a very bright young man, he’s not aloof, and he does care about his teammates, winning and playing at a high level.

He’s tremendously tough, tremendously bright and tremendously talented.

How many games has he missed in his career due to injury? One. What prerequisite do we have to gauge that he somehow tapped out against the Packers? In his five NFL seasons, we haven’t seen anything to suggest that. So when he does leave a game, how does the snap judgement swing to the extreme that he’s not tough enough?

Everything we do know about Cutler suggests that he is plenty tough.

The response to Cutler should have been the opposite. I’m not here to tell fans how to respond. But those of us who are working in the media, especially former players, we’re supposed to know better. It’s a critical error not to know the facts or to not use a historical context to fairly judge Cutler. No one wanted to take the time to do that. Instead, they wanted to jump on a set, clip a microphone on and get to talking. Of all people, we should know better.

As for the current players who took shots at Cutler, they are over-reacting just like fans, making the exact same mistake they often criticize the media of making. Maybe it’s where social networking comes into play. Who wants to take the time to wait for his test results to come back before weighing in? No one wanted to wait to see if Cutler was really hurt or to what extent he was hurt.

There are some who have been spending time talking about Cutler’s body language on the sideline. Well, what did it say? How was it translated? That’s a subjective matter that any two people can read very differently. If you can read his body language and come away with an accurate depiction of how Cutler really felt, you should have a different job. No one should be pontificating based on what they thought Cutler’s body language said, as if they were going to be accurate. I think it’s careless. You’re taking that critique to a place where it’s based on frivolous information that doesn’t hold any substance.

It’s amazing how reactionary the Cutler story became, and how quickly it happened. We’re all so quick to judge. Who can get their reaction out the quickest, and the strongest, with the most impact?

Why let the facts get in the way of a good story, soundbite or Twitter update?

Maybe it’s just me.

Follow The NFL Network on Twitter @nflnetwork.

Posted in: NFL Network  

View the original article here