Kellen is a pro
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- August
- 11
Kellen Clemens is in his third quarterback competition in his four years with the Jets. Last year’s with Chad Pennington abruptly ended when Brett Favre came in and Pennington was cut and picked up by the Dolphins. This year he would have faced Brett Ratliff for the starting spot, until a more challenging Mark Sanchez was snatched by the Jets in the NFL Draft.
Whatever your opinion of Clemens on the field, he is a very professional guy off of it. He took time to go over to Sanchez early on and say a few words after a rough outing during an OTA or minicamp. Today he said this about his philosophy on paying what he learned from Pennington forward.
“Really, it all comes down to one thing,” said Clemens, left in an AP photo with Erik Ainge and Sanchez. “When I was a rookie, I came in hoping to play and Chad Pennington was the veteran. Chad was very gracious with his knowledge and was very generous with the information he had, sharing it with me despite the fact that we were competing.
“I guess it’s kind of my way of paying it forward, sort of doing the same thing for Mark. We’re competing and each of us wants to play and unfortunately there’s only going to be one of us out there, but at the same time he’s been very respectful of me and the other vets coming in with the accolades that he’s got and the high draft status.
“He’s done a very good job of remaining humble and respectful of the guys that have been here as well. And someday Mark will be the old guy and there will be some wet behind the ears kid that got drafted and he’ll do the same thing for him.”
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 1:54 pm by Jane McManus.
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Jane McManus 
Clemens always has been that way, right from the start, which is one of the reasons why I’m such a big backer of the guy. He has real class. Quite a difference from that nut-job distant relative of his, Roger, who once threw half a broken bat at Piazza as Piazza ran to first base! How bizarre was that!
This story on Clemens is a little more relevent today. You can’t assume high character in all your players, out in Cleveland that all American QB Brady Quinn got caught tipping off the defense on plays that were called by his competitor QB Derek Anderson. It seems that Quinn in an attempt to improve his competitive advantage was undermining Anderson by giving the defense the call, that was relayed by hand signals. In New England this type of cheating would assure him of a starting job, lets see how Mangini handles this one, it will be interesting to see how Eric values character in his QB’s.
Good point Jane. However, the key part you missed was that Vinnie Testaverde started the chain way back when Chad was picked as the hair apparent and Vinnie started paying it forward. Chad merely lerned from Vinnie and so on and so on. Yes, Kellen is a classy pro, but that torch has been passed down four generations now.
these post board should have spell check…
I meant heir apparent…not hair apparent….LOL!!!
Good point david i. And Vinnie had great hair as well!
You know guys and gals this is all “Nice-nice” but when August 23rd comes and Big T-REX has to make that call it ain’t going to be all that warm and cuddly in the lockeroom!!
Yes Jane, I “peck” at this key board and hit send before I can spell-check too. Alison Bert would say it’s what blogging is all about, raw thoughts in print. I say it makes me look stupid???
[...] KC pays it forward. [...]
I am going back to this Brady Quinn, Derk Anderson thing.
Once again we are fortunate to have two classy guys as QB’s, as Clemens passes on the professional legacy fostered by Pennington and Testeverde.
Brady Quinn what a sleaze, undermining Anderson by tipping the defense to win the starting job. Brady’s deal requires a certain amount of playing/starting time for incentives to kick in, Brady hasn’t done too much in his first three years, the financial incentives just make it more creepy.
[...] McManus of the Jets Journal had the [...]