Jets' Tyler Conklin and his newborn son: Game plan worked to perfection
Tyler Conklin of the Jets reacts after a reception for a first down during the second quarter against the New England Patriots at MetLife Stadium on Sept. 19. Credit: Jim McIsaac
It was supposed to be a much more difficult choice.
When Jets tight end Tyler Conklin first learned that he and his wife Scottie were expecting their first child in mid-December, he figured he’d be in the late stages of a playoff push. Maybe fighting for a berth, maybe even jostling for seeding. Even in the earliest stages of their pregnancy, then, he had made up his mind.
If the baby were to come on a gameday, his priority would be the team. He would play.
But things didn’t quite work out that way. At least not in terms of the football. The Jets were eliminated from postseason contention a week earlier.
So when Fletcher Moore Conklin was born at about 10 o’clock on Sunday morning, his father was there to experience all of it and welcome him into the world . . . even while the Jets were playing in Jacksonville that afternoon.
“Seeing what she was going through with the labor at the hospital, there was no way I could have left her,” he told Newsday on Wednesday. “I had to be there.”
He was, in fact, ordered to be there.
Conklin was in meetings Saturday morning getting ready for the game when he found out Scottie was being admitted. He told Dave Szott, the Jets’ director of player development, and together they told interim head coach Jeff Ulbrich.
“(Ulbrich) was like ‘I’m not letting you miss the birth. Go home,’” Conklin said. “Brich told me ‘I wouldn’t have played you if you had skipped it.’ So I didn’t really have a choice. I was like ‘OK.’”
Even after he was excluded from the team’s flight to Florida on Saturday afternoon he had a commercial ticket in hand for 7:30 on Sunday morning that would have gotten him to the stadium in time to suit up. Had the baby come during the night he would have made that trip. Like so many things during this season, it didn’t work out according to plans.
The event capped several months of dueling emotions for Conklin. He would spend his days at work struggling with the frustrations of his football team’s failures then go home each night to step into the joy of pending fatherhood.
“Obviously it was an exciting time coming into the season, knowing I had a baby on the way and it would be here at the end of the year,” he said of his feelings during the summer when training camp began and the Jets’ aspirations were still high. “Things didn’t look like they were going to go this way… The football stuff hasn’t gone that well, but you still go out there and try to be the best you can every day. And knowing I had the baby coming, it’s been an exciting year all in all.
“It definitely came at the right time,” he said of the birth. “You get to the end of this season and you are at the point where you say ‘Man, things really didn’t go how you wanted them to go.’ You are 4-10 with a couple games left. So for him to come right now, and right around Christmas… That’s a great Christmas present right there.”
Adding to the complicated feelings is Conklin’s muddled future with the team. This is his third season as a Jet, the final one on the free-agency contract he signed after four years with the Vikings. He’s scheduled to become a free agent again this offseason and with so much uncertainty in the organization, including a new general manager and head coach on their way, there’s no telling what is in store for Conklin.
For either of the Conklin men, really.
“He’s always going to be a Jets baby, born in Jersey,” Conklin said of his son. “We’ll see how he grows up. We’ll see what happens there.”
By Wednesday, it was time to go back to work. In a locker room filled with relieved smiles after the Jets’ victory against the Jaguars, their first in six weeks, Conklin’s grin was among the biggest even though he had absolutely nothing to do with that win. He spent time accepting congratulations and showing off the dozens of pictures of Fletcher that already crowd his phone.
“It still hasn’t set in too much,” he said. “It still feels surreal. Like, I’m going to go home today and see my son.”
On Sunday, at home against the Rams, Conklin will play his first game as a dad. It’ll be his first chance to take the field since Fletcher was born.
It won’t be the first time Fletcher sees the Jets, though. After he was born and the initial euphoria settled into routine, Tyler Conklin went down to the car in the hospital parking lot to bring in the pre-packed bags for the family’s short stint in the recovery room. When he came back with all the gear Scottie had already turned on the TV and was watching the game from Jacksonville.
The Jets may be 4-10 and playing out the end of a miserable schedule, but they haven’t lost in Fletcher Conklin’s lifetime. Tyler Conklin would like to keep it that way for as long as possible. Expectations are back to being high.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.