NFL

Jets mates grumble about tight end Jace Amaro: ‘Can’t catch a cold’

CORTLAND — The ball hit the ground and the barking at Jets rookie tight end Jace Amaro began.

On one side, defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson taunted Amaro for letting a ball bounce off his hands. On another side, quarterback Geno Smith yelled and used hand gestures to demonstrate how Amaro should have run the route. A player jeered, “Can’t catch a cold,” and as Amaro walked back to the huddle, it was offensive coordinator Marty Mornhinweg’s turn to give Amaro an earful.

The second-round pick from Texas Tech is getting his introduction to life in the NFL. On Wednesday, he returned to practice after injuring his knee Sunday — and he may wish he hadn’t. He had a terrible drop, ran some wrong routes and slipped on a play, allowing his defender to intercept the ball.

“I felt like I went through a similar transition in college,” Amaro said. “I struggled a lot my freshman year. It’s a process. It takes a little bit and I ended up doing what I did at Texas Tech. I kind of play it the way I did back then. I wasn’t All-America my freshman year. It takes some time.

“But I feel like I’m more advanced than I was coming into college. That’s a plus. I feel like it’s going to come a lot quicker than a lot later. But I’m not worried about it. I just have to get better every day. I feel like I did some good things today. I won almost every one-on-one route I run. It’s just finishing the play and making sure I’m doing the little things right.”

For Amaro, the learning curve is a steep one as he goes from a relatively simple offense at Texas Tech to Mornhinweg’s system. He is transitioning from a number-based play-calling system to the Jets’ system that uses words.

“It’s like speaking Chinese to English, numbers to crazy lingo,” he said. “It took me a while and I’m still figuring it out. I don’t feel like I’m getting there. But eventually it will start clicking and once it does, I feel like I’ll be able to showcase what I can really do.”

The Jets took Amaro in May’s draft, hoping he would create matchup problems for opponents and give Gang Green a stud tight end like the ones they have had trouble defending in recent years. Amaro set an FBS record in 2013 for receiving yards by a tight end with 1,352, catching a whopping 106 passes in his junior year before turning pro.

So far, though, Amaro has been underwhelming in practice. Drops were a problem in the spring and have been again in training camp. The coaches chalk up the drops to him being bogged down by thinking too much about his assignments.

“Guys, he caught 106 balls,” Jets coach Rex Ryan said. “Did he drop some balls? Yeah. But we know he’s got the physical skills to do it. He’s got to focus. Sometimes if your head’s in other places and you’re thinking and all that, it’s hard to be at your best.”

The drops should not get Amaro down. He does not lack confidence. In the spring, he said he wanted to catch 100 passes and be like Tony Gonzalez.

“I have big expectations for myself,” Amaro said. “I know what I can do. I’m making a lot of things a lot more difficult than what they really should be because I’m not completely comfortable yet with this entire organization from the playbook and knowing how the coaches coach. It took me a little while to get [Texas Tech coach Kliff] Kingsbury’s offense down and once I did, I felt like I really took off. We’ll see if it can play the same situation.”