A Day of Listening to Each Other for the Jets: 'It is Different Growing Up Black in America'

The New York Jets took a day to listen and hear each other following the police shooting of Jacob Blake.

Change has happened for the New York Jets over the past couple of days. And it has nothing to do with the usual talk from training camp including positional battles or the metrics by which an offense or a defense are judged.

Instead, it was an understanding of growth from the cross-section of an NFL team learning to listen to each other and understanding the pain that many Jets players feel in light of recent news.

The Jets canceled practice on Thursday out of respect for the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, WI. The shooting of Blake last Sunday by the police has sparked increased protests nationally over the issue of policing.

“I took the time to understand it is different growing up black in America, and I now understand that better,” Darnold said Saturday on a virtual press conference.

“I feel like even going to USC and listening to my teammates tell stories even then, I had a better understanding, but now I’m just continuing to educate myself, and these conversations, as uncomfortable as sometimes they are, they’re really good. They’re really good conversations and they’re conversations that have to be had.”

Darnold said that something as simple as when he was younger and his parents would give him a curfew when out with his friends was different from the message many of his teammates received. To him, it underscored how very different his upbringing was and the need to listen and understand how everyone’s experiences have shaped them individually.

And beyond that, Darnold had to grasp the individual challenges in particular that some of his teammates have faced that were vastly different than his own upbringing.

“For me like I said, growing up in Orange County, my parents, it was important for them to tell me, ‘Hey, make sure you’re back home before dark’ and that was an emphasis for me growing up as a little kid,” Darnold said.

“But even talking to my teammates about how they were told, ‘Hey, make sure you’re home before dark or else something bad can happen.’ That is a different conversation than what my parents had with me. It was, ‘Hey, make sure you’re home before dark, because you don’t want to get lost’ - that was basically it. It wasn’t, ‘Hey, you can possibly get hurt or something bad can happen to you.’ It was, ‘Hey just make sure you’re home before dark because that’s the rule’.”

On Thursday, the Jets came together as an organization and discussed the Blake shooting as part of a larger conversation on social justice. The issue has been at the forefront of the national conversation in recent months, sparking nation-wide protests and talks of how to regulate or overhaul police systems.

A number of NFL teams decided not to practice on Thursday in response to the protests. In a similar fashion, the NBA cancelled their three playoff games on Wednesday.

“We spent a lot of time discussing with our team, things that we want to do moving forward to do our part. I think our players have done a phenomenal job of working as group,” Jets head coach Adam Gase said on Saturday.

“Those guys, it’s a tight group and it’s good to see all those guys trying to try to do the right things. And, I think I’ve seen some guys really step up in leadership roles that aren’t guys that you normally hear that speak a lot and to see these guys step up it’s been impressive to watch how these guys are moving us forward.”

The Jets maintained a scheduled off day on Friday despite the cancelled practice the day before. On Sunday, they will scrimmage at MetLife Stadium.

The return to football over this weekend doesn’t mean that the Jets are going to forget the lessons of the past few days. The hope for those like center Jonotthan Harrison is that this won’t be the end of just the conversation but the momentum for change.

“Of course, this whole situation triggers various emotions with everybody,” Harrison said.

“It was honestly just awesome to see the team come together and really hear-out everyone’s feelings and views on the situation. In a way, it pulled us closer together and helped us realize that ‘Hey, look as a group, let’s have each other’s back.’ We understand that the situation might affect ‘Guy A’ more than it affects ‘Guy B.’ And let’s all as an organization come together and work towards finding a way to help.”