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Jets defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman glanced up from his desk to the team’s schedule hanging above it and rattled off a succession of foes: Falcons, Steelers, Patriots, Bengals and Saints.

It’s the Jets’ midseason schedule, a stretch from Oct. 7 to Nov. 3, that could send the team into oblivion or give them a chance to shock people. The Jets will see some of the best quarterbacks in the NFL — enough to give any defensive coordinator pause, especially if you’re working in seven new starters like Thurman is.

“We’re going to play against some great quarterbacks and some great offenses,” Thurman said. “We’re going to have to be hitting on all cylinders if we’re going to be effective.”


N.Y. Post: Charles WenzelbergNO D-NIAL: New Jets defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman said his unit is “going to have to be hitting on all cylinders if we’re going to be effective.”The 57-year-old is in his first year as the Jets’ coordinator after four years of coaching the team’s defensive backs. “DT,” as he is known around football, took over for Mike Pettine in January then saw the Jets defense go through an extreme makeover.

Gone are Bart Scott, Sione Po’uha, Bryan Thomas and Darrelle Revis — all staples of the defense under Rex Ryan. It is possible Thurman’s defense will have five players in either their first or second seasons when the Jets open against Revis’ Buccaneers in September.

“They’re doing pretty good right now, but we’ve got miles to go to get those guys to understand how hard they’re going to have to play, how difficult it is to play at this level against some of the offenses we’re going to play,” Thurman said in his office last week.

Thurman has been preparing for this job for decades. As an All-American safety at USC in the 1970s, he helped mentor a young Ronnie Lott.

“By far, he was one of the biggest influences of not only my football life, but life in general,” Lott said in a phone interview this week.

Lott said Thurman even came back to USC after he was in the NFL and would teach things he learned from Tom Landry as a member of the Cowboys. Thurman’s influence was so profound on Lott, he thanked him in his Hall of Fame induction speech.

“He’s been coaching since he learned the game,” Lott said. “He’s just been a person that has always been a coach. You knew that it was going to be transferrable for him to be a coach. He’s always had a knack of communicating in a way that guys can understand it. A lot of coaches can’t communicate.”

Thurman went on to have a nine-year NFL career, mostly with the Cowboys. When his playing career ended, he spent two years coaching with the Cardinals then returned to USC as a defensive backs coach. During his time at USC, Thurman notably recruited future Giant Jason Sehorn and turned him into a cornerback.

Thurman then coached with Ryan in Baltimore for six years, and Ryan brought him along when he took the Jets’ head coaching job in 2009.

Under Thurman, the Jets’ secondary became a strength. Last year he had the team’s only two Pro Bowlers — Antonio Cromartie and LaRon Landry — and held together the unit after Revis was lost to injury in Week 3.

Now, Thurman takes over a Jets defense with plenty of new faces, and says the team’s youth on defense has its benefits and its drawbacks.

“We’re more athletic,” Thurman said. “We’re faster. It’s nice to see, but less experienced. It’s a trade-off. When you get young guys who are athletic and hungry and want to make their own name, it’s not always bad.”

Thurman knows his mission is to bring the young guys along, and the clock is ticking. All he has to do is look up from his desk for a reminder of that.

http://www.prosports...rticleId=253392
brian.costello@nypost.com

Traveling across the country or the world via any modern mode of transportation is a time-consuming affair. It can also be really annoying with the long lines, crying babies, armrest hogs, cramped space, etc. Would it not be the most awesome invention ever if some new type of transportation could cut that travel time significantly?

Get ready, because it may only be a few years from becoming a reality. A company called ET3 has plans in the works for the Evacuated Tube Transport, a high-speed transportation tube that uses magnetic levitation. The ETT can travel at speeds of up to 4,000 miles per hour, and each tube seats a maximum of six people and comes with a baggage compartment. How does it go so fast? It's airless and frictionless and could have you from New York to Los Angeles in 45 minutes, as opposed to the nearly five hours a direct flight would take. It could even have you depart from New York and be in Beijing in two hours.

The tubes would be set up like freeways to prevent crowding and traffic congestion problems. Plus, ET3 claims that passengers need not worry about feeling discomfort while traveling at such high speeds. The high velocity at which the tubes move is equal to 1G of force at top speed, which is similar to the force felt by someone traveling in a car on the freeway.

Daryl Oster, the founder and CEO of ET3, says that he got the idea for the tube transport system when he visited China back in the 1980s.

When and if the tubes make their debut in the next decade, they will initially be used to transport cargo, not people.

http://news.yahoo.co...07828.html?vp=1

Darin Hinshaw had countless scouts in his office at Tennessee last season asking questions and watching film on Cordarrelle Patterson and Justin Hunter.

As the Volunteers' wide receiver coach, it was easy to say nice things about two NFL-ready wideouts with first or second-round grades on them.

But after sharing the tape, Hinshaw said everyone would leave asking more about Zach Rogers, the 6-0, 172-pound slot receiver who posted 32 catches for 491 yards and seven touchdowns his senior year.

He wasn't surprised.

"After you watched the games, they all wanted to know about Zach," Hinshaw, now the passing game coordinator at the University of Cincinnati, said by phone Friday. "And everybody said it: You got two good ones here, but Zach Rogers -- I don't want to say he's going to be the best one -- but the Jets are really going to like having him."

He added: "You can always count on Zach Rogers. The only reason he's not super big-time is, he's 180 pounds and -- you know, he was just as fast as the other guys -- and honestly, it's because he's white." He said this part with a laugh.

The curiosity surrounding Rogers ballooned last week when Rex Ryan pegged him as one of the early risers in rookie minicamp. Spotlighting prospects without pads on is a fickle, and often worthless, exercise but Hinshaw saw it coming after watching Rogers operate in his pro-style offense at Tennessee.

The Vols' passing game drew from both the Patriots and Packers offenses. Rogers would be primarily used in the slot, but could split out to expand the offense. Opponents ran plenty of two-high safety looks against Tennessee to counter Hunter and Patterson and that's when Rogers would bump out wide.

"He's so fast, the South Carolina game last year he played against some really good defensive backs and tore them up for three touchdowns," Hinshaw said. "But he can split out, we split him out to run the deep post and take the top off the defenses."

The easy, and incorrect, way to pigeonhole a wide receiver like Rogers would be to compare him against current slot receivers of a similar body type: Danny Amendola, Wes Welker, Victor Cruz, Eddie Royal, Jordan Shipley.

"He's not Welker, Wes is a little squattier and has a lot of strength and is really, really quick," Hinshaw said. "Zach is very quick but doesn't have the strength Wes has. He's a little bit faster."

Except for one similarity.

"But he's definitely like those guys in that you can see him playing 15 years in the NFL," Hinshaw said.

Rogers was fourth on the Volunteers in receiving (second in touchdowns) last season and played in all 12 games. He does have a history of injuries -- concussion, ankle, shoulder, triceps -- but that didn't stop a few draft analysts from labeling him as one of the top sleepers in the class.

The New York Jets signed wide receiver Ben Obomanu on Thursday, adding another target for quarterback Mark Sanchez.

Obomanu was released by the Seattle Seahawks more than two months ago. He caught four passes for 58 yards in the first eight games last season, but spent the rest of the season on injured reserve.

The 29-year-old was drafted in the 2006 seventh round by Seattle, and spent six seasons with the Seahawks. He has 87 career receptions for 1,209 yards, including seven touchdowns.

The Jets also placed quarterback David Garrard on the reserve/retired list. In nine career seasons -- all with the Jacksonville Jaguars -- he threw for 16,003 yards and 89 touchdowns.

The prank where two GMs unwittingly ended up talking to one another and dropping some free-agent conversation has taken a decidedly unfunny turn.

Back in March, Tampa Bay GM Mark Dominik and then-Buffalo GM Buddy Nix found themselves talking to one another, each thinking the other had called. And they began discussing some behind-the-scenes info on trades and players.

Turns out the two had been set up by two 20-year-old men from Massachusetts, Joshua Barber and Nicholas Kaiser. They called each GM, pretending to be the other, then conferenced the calls together and silently recorded them. Deadspin posted the recording, and we all had a little chuckle about it.

But even then, there were concerns about the legality of the whole endeavor. The league announced its intention to press forward with an investigation at the time. Yahoo! Sports' Martin Rogers first raised the possibility of severe charges, a possibility which has now come to pass. The men now have been charged with federal wiretapping violations, and must appear in court in Buffalo on June 4. They face up to five years in prison.

"The New York Penal Code protects individuals against actions such as this with statutes on eavesdropping and interception of communications," L.A.-based criminal defense attorney Christopher Blaylock told Yahoo! Sports. "Statutes such as these can be open to the interpretation of a court, but a strong case could be made here given that neither party consented to the recording or monitoring of the conversation."

It's pretty clear that this was a simple prank, but one that grew way out of hand.

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