OTA Day

OTA access today and a good time was had by all. Put players on a field without pads and they have as much or more fun as Rex Ryan, wants them to have. To quote Ryan, "It's hard to have a bad practice when guys are flying around and having fun."

On a serious note, Ryan admitted he is "disappointed" that Leon Washington (and Thomas Jones) are not around, but it is giving RBs Danny Woodhead and Jehuu Caulcrick a huge opportunity to showcase themselves. It's also a help to the coaches who now have a bigger body of work to evaluate these players from.

A shout-out to the new head coach who, with threatening skies this morning, moved the practice indoors in deference to the press corps. It didn't rain so he critiqued himself later for having made a "poor decision." We'll overlook it.

In the meantime, the defense is certainly showing their new take-no-prisoners attitude. They seemed to be everywhere on every play. Dustin Keller jokingly referred to the fact that there seemed to be "120 guys out there" on defense. For him the number must seem especially skewed since, right now, there are two total TEs.

Bubba Franks was at the practice, but not participating. According to Ryan he's rehabbing some sort of "knee thing," but they expect him to be ready for training camp. I found it mildly interesting that they signed him knowing he probably wouldn't be ready for next month's mini-camp.

Kareem Brown told me he's getting more comfortable at TE (and for those of you keeping track, he has settled in at 260lbs). He is spending more than two extra hours per day studying the playbook and has been coming back to the facility on some evenings to get in extra work with tight ends coach Mike Devlin.

Clemens was his usual self, relaxed and amiable, but right now it's his show, since the only other QB in the room was Erik Ainge.

Safety Eric Smith was on his way home to take an online final for the Masters degree he is working toward in Criminal Justice.

As for Ryan, it's hard to fully describe the new atmosphere he's brought to the press room, but let's just say there hasn't been that much laughter - and information - in there in a long time.