Shaq Evans got off to a rough start at the Jets’ mandatory mini-camp Tuesday, and the rookie wide receiver knew exactly where to place the blame — on the NFL’s quarters-system rule.
The fourth-round pick from UCLA blasted the league’s 25-year-old policy that limits players whose schools operate on quarterly schedules to just one rookie mini-camp until that year’s senior class graduates.
The rule, put in at the urging of the American Football Coaches Association, even applies to rookies who leave early or aren’t in class. California state schools and most of the Pac- 12 Conference are on the quarters system, as are Northwestern of the Big Ten.
“I really don’t understand it,” Evans told The Post after Tuesday’s workout in Florham Park. “If I’m not in school, it shouldn’t matter. It’s ridiculous. I hope the league changes it, because it definitely sets players back. It’s a silly, silly, stupid rule.
“I’d love for the [NFL Players Association] to take it on and at least make it more beneficial for the players,” Evans added. “I don’t see how it benefits anybody, really.”
Evans, who began his career at Notre Dame before transferring to UCLA after his freshman year in South Bend, might have just been frustrated after dropping at least two passes during his first practice since returning to the Jets.
Evans played like his head was spinning, and he admitted as much afterward.
“It’s definitely not easy coming in and trying to learn the plays on the fly,” Evans said. “It’s also hard for me to get a lot of [repetitions] because I’m still trying to learn while everybody else has been here the past four weeks and I’ve been in school trying to get my degree.”
Evans said his woes during practice also could be attributed to working with an actual person on the other end of passes again. His football workouts the past month were limited to the Jugs throwing machine.
“I’m definitely rusty,” Evans said. “It’s just not catching balls from a Jugs machine and then catching them off an arm, especially one like Michael Vick’s, who is left-handed. It’s definitely set me back.”
Coach Rex Ryan came to the defense of players in Evans’ situation hamstrung by the quarters-system rule, although Ryan didn’t call for it to be changed out of fear of the perception his comments might create.
“I don’t think I can win with that one,” Ryan said, adding he didn’t want to appear anti-education. “It’s been going on a long time, and Nick Mangold told me [he] loved it because he was on the quarters system at Ohio State and got to miss [NFL practice time]. But it’s weird, because it’s not uniform.”
Ryan wasn’t the only one to use that description.
“I had the playbook, but it’s weird to be totally on your own like that,” Evans said. “All you have is the playbook, with no coaching and no teammates around to bounce things off of. It’s a strange feeling.”
Evans will be back on his own for the next five weeks after this mini-camp, although he plans to bear down and work with the UCLA football team until training camp to keep the rust off.
It will help that the Bruins have top NFL quarterback prospect Brett Hundley to throw to him, but Evans still isn’t a fan of where the rule has left him in his development.
“I’m a smart guy, so it won’t take me too long to catch up,” Evans said. “But I’m definitely a work in progress.”