The last time Santonio Holmes was in a Jets uniform, the game ended with him on the bench in Miami watching the final seconds of the team’s 2011 season tick away.
When the team reconvened yesterday for the beginning of their offseason workouts, Holmes had no desire to revisit the tumultuous end to last season.
“It happened down in Miami, and that’s where it’s going to stay, down in Miami,” Holmes said on a conference call with reporters.
It was the first time Holmes addressed reporters since that 19-17 loss to the Dolphins that featured Holmes fighting with teammates and getting benched by then-offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer.
That scene put the exclamation point on the Jets’ 8-8 season, Holmes’ second with the team. But the message coming from the Jets’ Florham Park headquarters yesterday was that they have moved on.
“That happened in the 2011-2012 season,” Holmes said. “That happened in the past. … We’re worried about the 2012 New York Jets football season, and if you’re not concerned with that, we don’t have anything else to talk about.”
Jets coach Rex Ryan addressed the team in the morning, stressing in a short speech that 2011 was over with and that this was the first day of the 2012 season. The team then split into offense and defense for meetings, where they received playbooks.
After a year when he admitted he lost the pulse of the locker room, Ryan will be constantly pressed about the chemistry on this year’s team.
“I know we’re going to build a great [team],” he said. “I don’t care what you call it — a brotherhood, a tribe, whatever — but we want to be special. That starts right now with the offseason program.”
No one faces more questions than Holmes, whom the Jets signed to a five-year, $45 million deal before last year. By the end of the year, he had showed up quarterback Mark Sanchez in the meeting room and then fought with tackle Wayne Hunter in the huddle in Miami.
But yesterday when asked if he had any regrets about his role in the way the season ended, he said: “Why should I?”
There was some speculation that Holmes might not be back with the Jets this season, but he said he never had any doubts.
Holmes had praise for Sanchez, who reached out to the mercurial receiver in February and traveled to see Holmes at his home in Florida.
“I think it’s more so the leadership part of Mark,” Holmes said. “He’s portraying those leadership qualities of being the guy that’s going to be here for a while. By reaching out to me and wanting to spend some time with me and just chit-chat and put everything behind us, I think it was a great thing for he and I to establish. We’re looking forward to bigger and better things this yearWe’re both competitive football players and we look to make the most out of every situation and we’re going to do exactly that this year.”
But then Holmes gave an answer about Sanchez that did not sound as positive when he was asked how the two players’ relationship has evolved over the last few months.
“He’s still here as our starting quarterback, and I’m still here as our starting receiver, so I think our relationship has to evolve around that,” he said.
Jets guard Matt Slauson, who was honored last night by “Our Time,” a non-profit organization that helps kids who stutter, said there was little talk of last year while the players were together.
“It was like a long-lost family coming together again,” Slauson said. “There wasn’t any reference to the past. I feel like everybody’s put that to bed. We saw what getting wrapped up in that junk will do. We don’t want any part of that now. We just want to win.”
Holmes said even though Ryan is doing away with captains this year, he will still act like a captain and other leaders of the team should. A few hours later he sent out a photo of himself over Twitter wearing a shirt with one word on it: “Captain.”