It has been a tremendously active few days for the New York Jets, particularly for general manager Mike Tannenbaum. The Jets GM joined the Michael Kay Show on ESPN Radio New York recently to discuss Nnamdi Asomugha, Plaxico Burress and other Jets comings and goings.
Here are some excerpts from the interview:
How did the dealings go with Nnamdi Asomugha?:
"I’m not a big deadline guy. If you get a deal done five minutes after then I think sometimes they can be artificial. With that said … what we try to do is protect ourselves. Lines of communication obviously were open with a number of different scenarios and after Nnamdi didn’t work out, obviously we were on to Antonio Cromartie and Plaxico Burress. At the end of the week, we felt really good. We accomplished everything we wanted. We wanted a front-line cornerback which we can’t back in Cro."On taking the risk of signing Plaxico Burress:
"Given his physical attributes, we think he’s going to help us this year. Will he be 100 percent the same player? Obviously that’s hard to say. Even if he starts off at whatever, 60 or 70 percent of what he was, and as the season goes on, improves, we really feel like his stature and his ability in the red zone is going to help us. We appreciate the fact that it’s going to be a little bit of a work in progress."
Given the weapons he now has, how big of a year is this for Mark Sanchez?:
"Every year in the NFL it’s an important year. He’s been in the league for two years and has four road playoff wins. I think that’s a pretty good way to judge a quarterback. And the thing about Mark is that he loves football. He’s a football junkie and it means a lot to him and he hates to lose. I think we’ve got the right guy there. He has tremendous leadership ability and I think, more and more, you’ll see this is his team."