Vernon Gholston will get his chance to prove his awful rookie season was a fluke.
Jets head coach Rex Ryan said Gholston will start at outside linebacker the first four games of the season while Calvin Pace serves his NFL suspension.
“Guys have got to step up and we talked about Vernon Gholston,” Ryan said. “Hey, here it is. We said he’s going to be a big part of what we do. Now, he’s in the starting rotation.”
Gholston, in his second year out of Ohio State, will try to bounce back from a dismal rookie campaign when he had 13 tackles and no sacks.
Pace was suspended the first four games of the season for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing substances.
The Jets open Ryan’s first training camp as a head coach next Friday in Cortland and he is eager to get started.
“It’s on, especially now,” Ryan said Wednesday. “Do I have a chip on my shoulder and things like that? Always. I’m going into this season no different. I have something to prove as a head coach. When we’re predicted last by almost all the major publications in our division, I don’t care.”
From the moment he was introduced as coach in January, Ryan has spoken with confidence and made brash statements, including getting into an exchange with Miami Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder. The time to back it all up is almost here.
“The Channing Crowder thing, I was having fun with that stuff and it’s unfortunate that I think that got kind of blown out of proportion,” Ryan said. “That’s something if I had to do it all again, maybe I’d take back. But, I will say this: I stand by everything I’ve ever said. Who I am is what you see every day and I’m not changing.”
When veterans report to camp next Thursday, Ryan expects running backs Thomas Jones and Leon Washington to be there. Both missed parts of the offseason programs while looking to renegotiate their contracts.
Potential holdouts aside, most of the attention from fans and media will be focused on the quarterbacks, with touted rookie Mark Sanchez competing for the starting job with inexperienced veteran Kellen Clemens.
“I’m confident in the fact that the guy who emerges as the starter will have earned the job,” Ryan said. “We’ll see who that is. Obviously, Kellen’s got a head start because this will be his fourth season in the same system. I think Sanchez, there’s a reason we took him with the fifth overall pick, so let him have at it.”
The uncertainty at the position is only one reason the Jets are being picked to finish behind New England, Miami and, in some cases, Buffalo in the AFC East.
“They question our receivers, they question me being a first-year head coach and I’ve never been thought of as a negative for a team,” said Ryan, who recently e-mailed his players about the lack of respect they’re getting. “I’ve always been thought of as a positive. We’ll see.”