Demoted Jets left guard Vladimir Ducasse can't explain reasons for penalties (original) (raw)
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Monday night in Atlanta, the Jets probably will start a rookie left guard, third-round draft pick Brian Winters, who has played one snap all season, when he replaced Vladimir Ducasse in the Week 3 win over Buffalo.
If Winters does indeed start, the Jets understand there are going to be rookie mistakes. But they would be banking on Winters performing better over the long haul than Ducasse did during the first four games. Ducasse did not set a very high bar, though he was nonetheless disappointed Wednesday about his demotion.
The Jets haven’t officially named Winters the starter for Monday yet, but Jets coach Rex Ryan is working Winters with the first team this week, so you can see where this is probably going, as the Jets evaluate Winters.
“I’d like to see Brian,” Ryan said Wednesday as the Jets resumed practice for Atlanta. “We’ll work him in with the ones this week and see how that goes.”
Winters and Ducasse battled for the left guard spot in the preseason, but Winters was limited by an ankle injury. Winters’ ankle is healed now, offensive line coach Mike Devlin said last week. Who knows whether Winters would have won the job for Week 1 if not for that ankle injury?
The Jets had high hopes for Ducasse when they drafted him in the second round in 2010. But as he made a rocky-at-times transition from tackle to guard, he wasn’t able to crack the starting lineup until this season, when the Jets were looking to replace Matt Slauson, their starter at left guard from 2010-12.
Ducasse, who is in the final season of his initial contract, finally got a chance to start in this year’s first four games, and on a whole, it wasn’t pretty. He had four penalties in Week 3 against the Bills (two false starts, a face mask and a holding). He had two in the Week 4 loss at Tennessee (a false start and a holding call that was declined).
Ducasse couldn't explain his penalty issues, but said he believes he hadn't played all that bad overall.
"I don't have a clue what's going wrong," he said of the penalties. "Penalties are penalties. That's one thing I can't really explain. They're just penalties. Just something I have to clean up. I think I've been doing a pretty solid job (overall) compared to where I was before."
Does he expect Winters to start on Monday night, as many observers expect?
"Honestly, I don't have a clue," he told reporters. "I guess you guys will find out when I find out."
Based on the way right guard Willie Colon talked Wednesday, Winters starting on Monday is a foregone conclusion.
“He’s a physical guy,” Colon said of Winters. “He’s athletic. Right now, it’s just getting his feet wet. This is going to be his first live, real game, so it’s going to be interesting. Anybody’s first game, I don’t care who you are, it’s going to be difficult just because of the game speed. It takes a guy at least a game or two for his mind to adjust to game speed. He’ll be fine.”
Colon has tried to encourage Ducasse this season, but he could tell Ducasse was quite discouraged by the demotion.
“I think for him, he feels like he didn’t deserve it (to be benched),” Colon said. “Any player, you get benched, it sucks. I know he took pride in what he did. I know he probably feels like, yeah, he could have did better at things. To him, he feels like it wasn’t time for him to take the bench, and I think he’s a little hurt by it. But it’s the business.”
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