Sione Pouha’s YouTube reality show is over for now although the Jets’ nose man tonight could start one more chapter in his story — a cross-country return from his home in Utah to his second home in New Jersey to finally begin practice for the 2011 NFL season.
“We heard that echo plenty of times the last couple weeks — we’re ready go, ready to go. It was almost a cry-wolf mentality,” Pouha told me early this evening, shortly after the players joined the owners in approving the new CBA. “But once it worked out officially today, now I’m getting my plane tickets myself, and all the other Jets players are excited to get back.”
Sione did his due diligence this offseason. Back in Jersey earlier this summer, he jumped into the team practices that Mark Sanchez organized, and also participated in a “formatted workout” that he got from a former coach at the University of Utah. Then when he got back home he and a group of mostly Polynesian players, including the Ravens’ Haloti Ngata, worked out “pretty intensely.”
Also while in the Garden State, Bo got together with Mo, as in first-round draft choice Muhammad Wilkerson. This could be the basis for a new Internet sensation … the Bo and Mo Show … or the Mo and Bo Show. Titles will be settled later.
“Mo? Oh, he’s great, man,” Pouha said. “A few weeks previous to the team workout, we had gotten together in terms of just working together as a defensive line unit at a local high school. We worked on the bags there, and in the end we could get our reads, our timing, our hands down, get a feel for it. We didn’t accomplish what we could have accomplished in OTAs, but at least we tried to utilize what we had in terms of sleds and trying to simulate more of the game.”
Wilkerson said today that the work with Pouha, Mike DeVito, Jamaal Westerman and other Jets D-linemen helped him get through his unusual first offseason as a professional football player.
“I think we would’ve had OTAs, things that nature, and things probably would’ve been maybe a little easier for me learning that stuff. But I don’t think that’ll be much of a major issue. I’ve been playing football all my life. I’ll just take it day by day.”
“When I get in, I just want to work all around as far as my technique,” he said. “I just want to work on being a pro, knowing what I’ve got to do, showing improvement on the field in just about everything, and once the season comes, being able to help out wherever I’m called on.”
Guard Brandon Moore, who no doubt will run into Wilkerson a few times in August training camp practices, agreed with the theory that, say, the Jets’ six-man draft class will not benefit from missing the usual offseason tutoring.
“There’s going to be a lot of guys that this lockout didn’t help,” Moore said. “I think the younger guys, the rookies and second-year guys, not having the coaches in their ear, I’m sure they’ll come in in great shape and look good physically, but this is not one of those times that are going to help a lot of guys.”
However, Moore said he and his teammates can heave “a sigh of relief” and give thanks the players and owners agreed to the new CBA.
“I think guys can be proud of the leaders that were in the room and the reps that had their back in those rooms during those tough negotiations, and getting back to where we finally got a deal done,” said the Jets player rep. “Now we can just stop really talking about revenue splits and things like that and get back to talking about football.”
Other Jets vets joined in on the imminent return to the complex. Here’s a joyous tweet from safety Jim Leonhard, whose season ended with his broken leg at the Friday practice before the Jets-Patriots Monday night game on Dec. 6:
Finally allowed to play football again. I’ve been waiting for this since December 3rd. Go Jets!!
CB Marquice Cole also had an upbeat tweet:
So excited to get back on the field. The hard work this off season is about to pay off.
We’ll hear more from Jets players, defensive, offensive and specialists, as they start to return to the complex in Florham Park, N.J., Tuesday around 10 a.m.
