As expected, the Jets ruled wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery, who has a groin injury, out for tomorrow’s game against Houston.
But closing the door on Cotchery just opened it for others, including versatile Brad Smith, who could take a bigger receiving role and big Patrick Turner, who was called up from the practice squad.
“I worked as hard as I could to give myself a chance to play this week, but didn’t make enough progress, wasn’t able to do enough stuff on the field,” said Cotchery, who had to be convinced to sit. “It was very wise. I’m going to continue to work to get my groin better and have a chance of playing next week.
“Sometimes you have to hear someone else to get you out of the way. As a player you don’t want to miss any games. You want to be out there with your teammates. But the guys will be ready to play and I’ll be rooting them on. The approach I had this week is giving me a good shot of making it next week.”
Cotchery partially tore his left groin at Cleveland last week and missed three days of practice. He spent most of the portion of yesterday’s practice open to the press running routes parallel to the receivers or stretching on a nearby field. Eventually the coaches had to convince him to sit tomorrow in the hope of being ready to play Thanksgiving night against the Bengals.
“That’s part of it. If we were playing the Super Bowl, he’d be playing, but we have more games to play this year and we have to make sure we’re doing the right things by him and for ourselves as well,” said coach Rex Ryan, who added he is confident others can fill the void. “I don’t know how much it’ll change because we feel pretty good when you have Brad Smith to go in there.”
Smith, a jack-of-all trades and special teams ace, will take over as the third receiver with Turner the fourth and last active receiver. It will be Turner’s second game with the Jets. He went without a catch in the Sept. 26 game at Miami.
“When I looked at Turner, and then at Braylon Edwards, [Turner is] like three inches taller. That’s the first thing you notice, he’s a big guy,” Ryan said of Turner, who is 6-foot-5, 220 pounds. “I like the way he’s been practicing. He competes hard every day.
“In fact, I gave him a lot of credit for pushing Darrelle [Revis in practice] the way he did getting ready for [Detroit’s Calvin Johnson]. We gave him a game ball for that because he got into it. They almost got into a fight with each other, he was working him so hard. That was when Darrelle was back to being Darrelle, so I think the young kid can do it. We’ll see this week.”
Edwards said he doesn’t expect Cotchery’s absence to affect the game plan.
“I don’t think it’s going to change too much,” he said. “Look, we were only two receivers when the season started as it related to the ‘Big Three,’ and we were having success, the offense was rolling. So, not to say anything negative about Jerricho, but I don’t think the offense will miss a beat.”