FlyHyNY: Special team TDs under Mike Westhoff.

Mike Westhoff joined the New York Jets in 2001 as the Special Teams Coordinator.  Since then, 6 players have returned kickoffs for 12 touchdowns.  They are Chad Morton, Jonathan Carter, Jerricho Cotchery, Justin Miller, Leon Washington and Brad Smith.  Santana Mosshas returned punts for TDs, while four other Jets have blocked punts for TDs.


Check out the breakdown of Special Teams TDs after the jump.

FlyHyNY: You Foxed it all up.

I just feel like ranting about this.  My field is in media, and I work with aspiring reporters and broadcasters all the time.  I also pay a lot of attention to how games are televised and directed.

First of all, Fox still hasn't adapted the timeout bars.  If you don't know what that is, they're three little bars added to the scoring graphics to let you know how many timeouts are left for each team.  All the other networks have it.  But Fox does have a big dancing robot.  Yay.

Apart from the fact that the Jets lost, the entire broadcast was terrible.  The announcers kept getting cut off as they would go to commercial.  The plays they were talking about weren't getting shown.  The earliest example I can think of was a play in which the color commentator was praising Woodhead's block.  He kept talking about the block, and they kept showing the receiver's catch.

Other examples were the dumb penalties.  Thomas Jones got flagged, and we only saw like two seconds of it.  Alan Faneca's late flag seemed ticky tacky to me, but there was no discussion about it.  We only saw it once, and that was it.

Even the preseason game coverage with Greg Buttle and Ian Eagle is better than this.

Workin' Dem Corners

So, in order to drum up some business, the powers that be at work thought up this idea of printing out coupons.  I volunteered to stand outside Manhattan Mall and hand them out, and I was there a couple of times this week.  At first, it was a little awkward, just not knowing exactly where to stand and with the paper coupon being blown all about in the wind.  But I soon got the hang of it.

I decided to just stand by the wall at Bank of America and focus only on the people going southward.  That way I didn't have to keep turning.  And then I learned that some people do want to take what you're giving them.  With the wind blowing, I just made sure I handed off the paper right into their hands.  In about a half hour, the pile was gone.

There are millions of people in this city, and even though most wouldn't take, there are always others who will.  It was also nice just to stand there in a busy section, not hurrying to be anywhere in particular, and just look at the people as they come and go.  It was actually refreshing to look at people's faces, and a couple actually talked to me.

I'm not sure whether the coupons are working though.  So far, only one came back to our office.  Many of the people out there are tourists, and some don't speak (or read) English.  Others probably took a quick glance at the coupon and figured we where a video store.  And video stores are becoming obsolete.  So I don't know.

We had a meeting the other day, and we were asked to come up with ways to make money now.  And I was thinking, if we knew of a way to bring people in this instant, we would have done it already.  The only ways we know of - and are fairly certain about - require some groundwork.  But those suggestions are ignored because they wouldn't bring in clients right this instant.

I don't know.  I might not have a job in a few weeks.  I am currently applying at other places.  It's scary.

FlyHyNY: ...and the home of the... JETS!

The New York Jets won their game last week in Toronto against the Buffalo Bills.  We are still in the playoff hunt.  It's a slim chance, and we still have to win our last four games, starting with Tampa Bay on Sunday.

There was a lot of hoopla about Mark Sanchez not sliding to protect himself.  In order to stress the importance, the Jets had brought in Yankees manager Joe Girardi to help with some pointers.  During the game, however, with the first chance to show the world that he is learning, Mark opted to dive for the first down instead.  A few minutes later, he left the game with a knee injury and never came back.

There's some controversy about whether he did the right thing or not.  That he simply being competitive, because if he played it safe, they would have to punt the ball and give it to the other team.  But they had the lead and the defense was playing great.  If he didn't get hurt, he would have had more chances for touchdowns.

Back-up QB Kellen Clemens took over for him.  He showed extreme caution with the ball, and actually had a nice throw to Jerricho Cotchery for a first down.  Kellen took a couple of sacks and a fumble, but he didn't turn the ball over.

There's some controversy about Kellen's play also.  He looked pretty bad out there, and some fans would argue that he seemed lost and unprepared.  I thought that myself at first.  But I've changed my mind since then.  Firstly, Head Coach Rex Ryan gave Clemens a game ball after the game.  What is there to reward for his performance?  I think it was because Kellen ate the ball and swallowed his pride.  He took it for the team.  He looked bad out there, but he followed the directive of not turning the ball over.

Offensive Coordinator Brian Schottenheimer also affirmed that with the lead and the defense playing great, they decided to be conservative with the playcalling.  He also stated that Kellen is always prepared for each game.  And he explained that the one fumble had to do with the simple fact that his cadence is different than Mark's.  It's not an excuse, of course, but I do think that it wasn't totally Kellen's fault.

Anyways, I think Kellen will open up the eyes of Jets fans this coming Sunday and turn heads from other teams looking for a QB next year.

Meanwhile, Free Safety Kerry Rhodes might end up with another team next year.  He just doesn't seem to fit the Rex Ryan defense.  He was demoted a couple weeks ago.  But then he actually came up with two interceptions during the game.  Some would argue that he simply happened to be at the right place at the right time.  In the same game, his replacement Eric Smith played hard and hit hard.  It's fun watching him and Jim Leonhard out there.  They are a couple of tackling machines.  They personify "Mean Green."

Yesterday, Kerry had a little incident with Defensive Backs coach Dennis Thurman.  Some reports have him yelling at the coach, while Kerry says it was just a talk.  I don't know exactly what happened, but I'm inclined to think Kerry won't be back with the Jets next year.  He simply doesn't seem to be adjusting to his new defense and his new role.

I really like Eric Smith.  I think this will be like the same situation when Jonathan Vilma had a tough time adjusting to former HC Eric Mangini's defense.  Back-up David Harris stepped up and is playing great at linebacker.  Meanwhile, Vilma has been flourishing in his kind of system with the New Orleans Saints this year.  Hmm, maybe Kerry Rhodes will end up joining him there next year.

Okay, that's it for now.  Maybe I'll post something tomorrow.  Or maybe not.  We'll see.

'Til next time, FLY HIGH N.Y.!!! Let's go Jets!!!

FlyHyNY

Fly high, N.Y.!!!

Okay, it's Thursday December 3, 2009, and tonight the Jets take on the Buffalo Bills at the Rogers Centre in Toronto. I'm confident that the Jets will win and finally be at .500 with a record of 6-6. The playoffs are a long-shot, but we're still in it.

This week people made a big deal about Joe Girardi coming in to teach Jets QB Mark Sanchez how to slide. The news stories I've read about it make it look like Mark is so clueless and the coaches are so inept that they have to bring an outside source in. Well, I'm sure there are plenty of people in the staff who can show the technique, but since the manager of the World Series champions was available and willing, what the heck, right? What's the big deal?

Also, part of the issue was that Mark will be wearing a knee brace in the game in his left leg and Girardi was helping him adjust to sliding with the right leg.  According to Girardi himself, it's not exactly easy.  And Girardi was only there for a few minutes.  It's not like he spent the whole day just teaching the guy how to slide.

For the second game in a row, Eric Smith will be starting at free safety instead of Kerry Rhodes.  Eric is a hard hitter, and it's fun watching him running him all over the field with strong safety Jim Leonhard.  Both those guys are tough tacklers (Smith led the team last week with 8).  As much as I like Kerry, and as much as I was excited by his two interceptions on Sunday, he really hasn't done much all season before that.  I like this formula of having Eric Smith starting and dealing the body blows, while Kerry Rhodes comes in on nickel and dime packages to provide the knockout punch.

I'm still trying to figure out the time zone thing on this blog, so whatever it says, it's actually 4pm now.  One hour left to go before quitting time.  I better start working.  :-)

'Til next time, FLY HIGH N.Y.!!! Let's go Jets!!!

Hello.

I haven't written in this blog in months. I've been a little busy. Or sometimes I would have... um... that thing... uh... writer's block.

Well, I just spent the Thanksgiving holiday at home, four straight days with my family. I was playing with my son, and he crawled all the way from the living room to the kitchen, then to the bedroom, and turned purposely towards the bathroom. It was awesome! He is now 8 months old and has gone through so many changes.

And I thought, if I had written about him trying to sit up, attempting to hold his own bottle, or crawling backwards, I would have had an account of his experiences at that stage, as well as mine and my wife.

So I think I'm going to try this time to actually keep up with this blog.

I think my last entry was in September. Since then, my wife has earned her driver's license, and it's been a great relief for me. As for her, she is still adjusting to having to share the road with idiots, but overall, I think she enjoys being able to drive. The most important thing, though, is that she doesn't have to wait for me to pick them up, take them to the doctor's, or have to wait for me when there's an emergency.

As I have mentioned, my son can now hold his own bottle, sit up and balance himself, and crawl throughout the house. He can also raise himself up to a standing position, which really scared his teacher at the daycare yesterday because she didn't know this. I think they were decorating for Christmas, and I guess he was crawling on the floor. When she turned around, my son was on his feet, holding on the sides of the cribs, moving slowly sideways from one to the other. She was shocked. They said it was an advanced skill for his age.

At work, things are still slow. Certain truths were revealed to me about the company's financial state, and I must say, it's pretty scary. I don't know what I would do if we go out of business. We even considered printing out coupons and handing them out on street corners. We ended up just sending emails to our clients.

I ran into an old friend on the train one day. He works as an IT for the New York Times, and he sometimes deals with their job postings. He said he'll let me know if they have any openings. That would be nice. I hope I hear from him soon.

My grandfather died. I didn't have the resources to go back to the Philippines. Or to even send money and help with the funeral.

The Jets started off the season great, but now they barely have a chance to make the playoffs.

Manny Pacquiao won his bout against Cotto, and my neighbors across the street could be heard hooting that night. Woo, woo, woo!

El Fino called me a couple of times. He seems to always remember my birthday. I never answer my phone, especially if the caller is unknown. Other times, I just so rarely talk on the phone that I just forget about it until I have to leave home. He left me a voicemail and said that sometimes I should just take a chance and say hello. Good point.

FlyHyNY: You Foxed it up.

Was anyone else disappointed in how Fox covered this game?

I'm not talking about the commentators, because I think they did a decent job.  I liked Brian Billick, especially since he has some insight on Rex Ryan.

But as far as the graphics and the replays, it was just full of glitches.  There was something odd that happened with the clock early in the game.  And their replays just weren't smooth, like the guys in the truck weren't always ready with it.  Also, I don't know if it was just my TV, but there were a bunch of times when the screen went black for a few seconds.

Also, the new thing that CBS and NBC have are those timeout bars.  I can't believe Fox still hasn't caught up with that and added it with their graphics.

Insurance

I got married last Friday. Just a small ceremony at the courthouse. The whole thing took 3 minutes. We went to McDonald's after for breakfast. We were joking around that that was the reception. It was a rainy day, and the judge said that was a good thing because it'll be nothing but sunshine after.

I don't really feel that much different. I don't think you need a wedding to prove that you love somebody. And half of the married people in America get divorced anyway. So I don't know that having a ceremony even ensures anything. And besides, our families are far away from us. Mine is in the Philippines, and hers is in Oahu.

I was planning on having a traditional Hawaiian wedding like that Jon & Kate episode. We would have it on our anniversary on September 9 of this year. Then our marriage date would be 09-09-09. That would have been cool. And easy to remember.

However, that would have cost money. And not that I have any more time to take off from work. And of course, the fall semester would just be starting, which is a busy time for Gail.

So when Gail's mom was here a couple of months ago, we decided to tie the knot while she was here. We asked for her blessing. She said to make sure it's what we wanted, and that we weren't doing it because of Ryan. So I said, "Of course not. I'm doing it for the health insurance!" Just kidding.

Anyway, we went and got the license. Of course, it takes time to process, and Mommy was leaving for Alabama already. So unfortunately, she couldn't be there for the wedding. Then we figured, okay, Gail's cousin BJ is coming over here to study, so let's schedule it after she gets here. She'll represent the family.

Fast forward, and now I'm wearing this wedding band on my finger. I gotta get used to it. I don't really wear rings or other kinds of jewelry. The last time I had one was during my heavy metal look phase late in high school and early in college when I always dressed in my black Slayer shirts, long chains and my skull choker and matching cross-bones ring. (I still listen to metal but don't bother with the look any more.) I've already been yelled at a couple of times for forgetting to wear it. Man, I sure hope I don't lose this thing.

That's the only thing that's changed really. This thing on my finger. I feel like I've been married to Gail since we started in 2005. And we've been living together for a long time already anyway. But now I can officially call her my wife. And she's changing her last name to mine. And we'll keep loving each other and loving Ryan and make seven more babies like Jon & Kate Plus Eight.

Metropolitan

Happy Father's Day to everyone!

Today is my first Father's Day as a dad, and I just fed my three-month old son four ounces of milk.  He is now in his crib sleeping peacefully in his cute little New York Jets jersey.  It finally fits!  I actually bought it for him when he was still about two weeks old in his mommy's belly.  These days he's quickly outgrowing his newborn clothes, so I made sure he got to wear this one and take some pictures in it.

Last week we bought him three New York Mets onesies, but they're still a little big for him even though they were the smallest size we could find.  Hopefully, by the time they fit late this summer, the Mets will be playing in some meaningful games.

I was never a baseball fan growing up.  I did go for Little League once in the Philippines.  There was this white American guy teaching us how to stand in the box and hold the bat and stuff.  I remember he kept insisting we just talk to him in our own dialect - which he understood but didn't speak - instead of our awkward sounding English.

It went okay, I guess.  And I don't know what happened, but I just never went back for some reason.  Weeks later in school, my friends were deciding who should play what position in the field.  They were saying, "Ryan* should play first base, Robert* should play second, and Sunny* should play shortstop."  And I just remember thinking, "What's a shortstop?"  I never asked them, though.  

I don't remember if they included me in there.  I think they did.  I remember them asking me to be at the field on Saturday.  I never did show up.  I was too busy riding my bike, I think.  I simply forgot.  It must have had something to do with my mom not being around, because she would have been on top of it.  But at that time she had already left to work in the States.

As for my dad?  Well, I'm not too fond of the guy.  I'm not too sure how I feel about him exactly.  When I was a little boy, I used to actually pray that he would die.  That's bad, yeah?  But I'm not sure if I really had enough reason to feel that way or if I was overreacting.  I'm not too sure.  I'm still thinking about it.

Not that we didn't have some good times.  But they were few and far between.  Or they would start out to be happy but turn out otherwise.

Once when I was nine, my mom sent us some baseballs and gloves, and my dad, my two older brothers and I went outside to play catch.  I've never played catch before in my life, and I definitely wasn't used to wearing a mitt or catching with my left hand.  (If you're right-handed, you have to catch with your glove on your left hand so you can throw with the right one.)

So my brother throws the ball to me, and it goes past my glove and straight to my sternum.  I couldn't breathe.  And instead of teaching me how to catch the damn thing properly, my dad and my brothers laughed.  And so I was never that crazy about baseball from that day.

Three years later, and I finally went to live with my mom in Queens, New York.  This was in 1991.  We were living in a nice house with my aunt, uncle and little cousin.  My uncle was Irish.  A white guy.  And I never understood what he found so interesting with baseball that he would sit on the couch for hours and watch the Yankees lose.

My uncle and I were never close.  I'm not too sure of why that is.  I think I was just too different for him.  He offered me chocolate pudding one time, and I refused to try it.  He gave me this odd "Are you insane?" look.  He seemed to think it was the greatest thing in the world, and he was excited for me to try it.  It just looked too damn squishy for me, okay?  Sorry, but I'm not interested.  So yeah, I think that disappointed him.  I was definitely not a typical American kid.

We moved out after a couple of months, and my mom and I lived in a small apartment in New Jersey.  It was there in 1995 when, having nothing else to watch, I tuned in to a baseball playoff game.  It was actually pretty exciting.  I watched Buck Showalter's Yankees lose to Tino Martinez and the Seattle Mariners.

The next year, I watched the same Tino Martinez win the World Series with the Yankees.  And on my birthday, too!  I started watching more baseball since then.

I never paid attention to the Mets, though.  The Yankees would go on to have the most wins ever in a single season, as well as another championship in 1998, and the Mets were just that other team in the city.

Until Mike Piazza arrived.  He was traded to the Mets in 1998, and they were gonna be a good team now, and I wanted them to be a good team, too.  So I followed along from time to time and rooted for them.

In 2000, the Mets made it to the World Series, and they played against the Yankees.  I actually found myself rooting for the Mets.  I figured the Yankees already had three rings out of the last four.  The Mets lost, of course, and they haven't been that successful since then.

But I'm still a Mets fan, and I hope I can bring my son to CitiField soon.  And someday, I hope to coach him in Little League and teach him the fundamentals.  For now I'll just watch the games on TV with the volume low so the noise doesn't wake him.

Dave's World

I'm sitting here in my office watching DVDs, as things have been slow at work lately. Actually, for a long time now. In fact, we even moved to a new space in order to cut costs. The boss signed the lease so hastily that he didn't even consider the wiring of the place, and we short out the circuits whenever we use the microwave, which is all the time, as we all pretty much brown bag it every day.

As far as my office, it's not the most ideal for a Video Editor. The shades are so thin and the lighting is so bright, that I've pretty much been getting major headaches everyday. It's not easy staring at a monitor with sunlight behind it, and there's pretty much no other place to put it as we are physically limited.

I've been asking my boss for thicker shades since we moved in here a month ago, and he keeps saying he'll get right on it. But he's here three days a week, and he spends his four-day weekends in Florida. So I finally decided to grab some cardboard boxes and propped them up against the window. They help ever so slightly, and it makes me feel that at least I did something about it. But it doesn't look very professional, and there's still a glare coming in from the inside lighting.

Recently, I've been telling our clients, "We're a no-frills company. We don't have a big space, couches, rugs, plasma TVs or vending machines, but we do offer experience and expertise." That kind of bullshit.

I would take another job in a heartbeat, but there is no other job to take. Unless I start out as an intern or freelance. And I need the steady paycheck, as I have a three-month old son at home. But more and more these days, I'm considering taking a chance as a freelancer. The situation at work is getting scary, and I don't know if one day my boss will just say, "Sorry, guys, we're done." Then where would I be?

My fiancé is getting promoted next month, although we're not sure how much more she'll be getting. We're hoping it would be twice the amount, but it's highly unlikely. Once we find out, then maybe we can make better decision for me career-wise.

In the meantime, I'll just sit here and watch episodes of "Dave's World." I remember enjoying it when it first aired on CBS in the 90s. But I was still in the eighth grade back then. Not that it's not funny. I just thought I would be laughing more.

Also, for some reason, they changed the theme song from a version of Billy Joel's "You May Be Right" to some slower instrumental, which just doesn't fit. The title sequence has a dog running around and craziness ensuing, and the music to it should be a little more upbeat. I wonder why they changed it. Maybe they're suffering from the recession, too, and didn't want to pay the residuals.