By MARK CANNIZZARO
CORTLAND _ Amidst the fireworks on the field during the spirited morning practice, the battle for the starting quarterback job continued with Kellen Clemens having his sharpest session yet … until he threw an interception on his final throw.
Clemens finished the day 8-of-9 but the stain on the canvas was a pick he threw to CB Darrelle Revis in the red zone after he’d engineered a terrific hurry-up drive.
It was Clemens’ sixth INT in six practices.
“Yeah, that is frustrating,” REx Ryan said of the Clemens’ INT. “Those are things that get you beat.”
“I’m going to give Kellen this advice _ if No. 24 (Revis) is on the right, throw it to the left,” Ryan added.
Clemens lamented the Revis as “bad luck,” adding, “Obviously, the last drive for us offensively showed our potential and what we’re able to do against this defense.”
Clemens continues to get virtually all the snaps with the starters, with rookie Mark Sanchez having gotten only a handful on Sunday but none yesterday.
Sanchez was 1-of-4 yesterday with one dropped pass and he’s pining for more reps with the first team.
“That means the world to me,” Sanchez said. “That’s where you can make your move. You want it to happen as much as possible. I’m right in Schotty’s (offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer) hip pocket and right next to Kellen as he’s calling the plays in the huddle and getting as close to taking those first team reps as possible.
“As soon as they come my way, that’s when you really need to make a move in this whole thing.”
Schottenheimer said yesterday getting Sanchez more reps with the first team is “something we definitely want to do, but you’ve got to earn those reps.”
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Sanchez has one of his brothers in town for a few days and, on Sunday night, they went out to dinner _ at Garcia’s Mexican restaurant down the street from SUNY Cortland.
“I figured Sanchez … Garcia we might as well give it a shot,” Sanchez said. “It was actually very good, authentic Mexican food.”
Asked if he’s working on endorsement deal with the restaurant, Sanchez, who signed a $50 million deal with nearly $30 million guaranteed, joked, “I don’t know. I might. I mean hopefully, I get a free meal.”
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The Jets waived TE Richard Owens and claimed rookie free agent TE Kevin Brock off waivers. Brock, from Hackensack, N.J. is from Rutgers.
… S Keith Fitzhugh suffered a shoulder injury in the morning practice and rode the stationary bike with a sling on in the afternoon special teams practice. … NT Kris Jenkins (calf) also worked on the bike.
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Ryan said the grass field here, which the Jets re-sodded in recent days, should be ready toomorrow. The plan is to work there today so they can do some goal-line and short-yardage heavy contact drills. “We’ve got to do some tackling now,” Ryan said.
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Great reaction from players and coaches about the morning fireworks, with three fights taking place in the 9-on-7 drills.
“This was our first real practice,” LB Bart Scott said.
Ryan didn’t seem all that bothered by the extracurricular activity, joking, “We had a little rock-’em, sock-’em robots out there. That always makes things interesting. This time of year, we’ve been through a few days, guys are tired of getting hit and those things happen.”
Ryan joked that he spoke to the players about “rules of engagement when you’re in a fight.”
“The No. 1 thing is that when you break up fights there’s an art to doing it,” he said. “You want offensive guys pulling off defensive players and defensive players pulling off offensive players. The reason you do that is so your buddy can get another shot in on somebody.”
The first shots in the 9-on-7 drill came between RB Thomas Jones and S James Ihedigbo and it quickly turned into an all-out team scrum with players breaking it up.
Jones ran toward the right sideline and was met with an Ihedigbo hit he didn’t like and immediately took some wild swings at him.
“Maybe James gave him a little love tap that Thomas didn’t appreciate,” Douglas said.
“It’s 100-percent real,” Ihedigbo said when questioned about the level of agitation. “There’s really no faking that. It’s football. We’re out here getting better, we’re out here playing hard, and we’re out pushing each other to get better.”
Shortly after the Jones-Ihedigbo bout, DT Howard Green took a swipe at FB Brock Christopher at the end of a play and that became a short scuffle during which mild-mannered LB Vernon Gholston tried to kick another teammate in the pile.
Finally, DB Ahmad Carroll and T Nevin McCaskill got into it briefly, though that ended in a mock fight with several players, including Revis and LB Marques Murrell playfully jumped onto the pile.
“Coach Ryan talks about playing like a Jet and we don’t want to take anything from anybody, but at the same time we want to respect our teammates,” Woody said.
“I let them know at the end of practice that I don’t need them to fight each other,” Ryan said. “Sometimes it’s good to let off a little steam.”
He believes things like what occurred yesterday help the team unity he’s trying to build.
“I sense that there’s a lot of pride in the particular units, and what you’re going to see is pride in whole team, so when we play an opponent you’re going to see a unified team, and that’s what we’re working toward.”