Training camps are underway, and unless you’re a Jets team managing a cavalcade of documentary cameras and hungry press, there is more hope than hecticness. There is more good than grief. That’s the best part about this time of year. Before there are games and a true measure of who is superior to whom, there is an appreciation on the individual level. Players stand out, get some social media love and inspire some fan-fiction fever dreams about the season ahead.
I remember covering the Jets back in 2012 when I met a defensive tackle on the roster’s fringe. We talked before final cutdowns and he said:
“Every day I walk into the locker room terrified, not knowing if that guy is going to be by my locker cutting me today,” he said. “I just don’t want to go back to Walmart, or even go home.”
