There’s a quiet, confident swagger about Kellen Clemens that belies his youth and inexperience.
That’s something the Jets hope will help their new starting quarterback succeed in bringing them a first victory since Sept. 23 when they play the Redskins on Sunday at Giants Stadium.
Clemens may be in the middle of his second NFL season. He may have started one NFL game. But, as he readies himself for his second start as a professional, Clemens has a presence that makes you think he may indeed provide the spark this stagnating 1-7 team needs.
“He’s always had that confidence about him – I call it a quiet swagger,” receiver Jerricho Cotchery said yesterday. “That’s good. You have to have that as a quarterback. You have to be confident. That’s one of the things he possesses.”
It’s one of the things that immediately attracted Eric Mangini to Clemens when he was scouting him.
“Where that stood out was in college (at Oregon),” Mangini said. “That’s what you saw on tape: his presence. As you talked to his college coaches, the people that played with him, the people that knew him really well, and that (presence) was one of the consistent characteristics that kept coming up.
“They’d also talk about his energy level and how his energy was contagious,” Mangini said. “Those are the things I liked in terms of his intangibles outside of what he had physically when we had the choice to draft him (49th overall).”
Those are the things the Jets are hoping can drag them from the doldrums of their five-game losing streak.
Clemens said he’s used his practice time with the scout team and second team to keep his confidence and presence in play despite not being a starter.
“You don’t ever want to lose that confidence as a quarterback,” he said. “I guess the way I continued to work on it and maintain it was through my reps with the scout team. When I stepped into the huddle going against our (first- team) defense, trying to prepare them, I tried to talk to those guys as if we were going out there on Sunday.
“That’s kind of the way I tried to maintain that confidence, that quarterback swagger, if you will.”
His teammates have noticed.
Running back Thomas Jones, one of the newcomers here this season, talked Monday about Clemens’ presence in the huddle. Tight end Chris Baker agreed.
“Confidence is always a good thing for a quarterback to have because you’ve got 10 guys in the huddle who feed off of that,” Baker said. “We have definite confidence in him that he can go in and get the job done. Obviously, the coaches feel the same way.”
Clemens clearly has a stronger arm than Chad Pennington does, so more stretching of the field with some down field passes should be expected Sunday.
One thing that will be most compelling to watch is how Clemens orchestrates the no-huddle offense the Jets employ. Pennington has been a master at calling audibles at the line of scrimmage to get the team in and out of bad plays depending on what he saw at the line of scrimmage.
Whether Clemens will be as adept at that remains to be seen.
“I’ve had the privilege of watching Chad over the last year-and-a-half, watching him get us into good plays, so I’ve hopefully learned quite a bit from him and saw his ability to do that,” Clemens said. “I’m going to continue to pick his brain.”
With Pennington, his personal assistant coach, being benched after Sunday’s 13-3 loss to the Bills, this is Clemens’ team for as far as he can take it.