Jeremy Ruckert ready to rock after frustrating rookie year with Jets
FLORHAM PARK, N.J.
In a training camp that already has had its share of dazzling passes and dizzying catches by some of the top players in the league, a fairly nondescript play took place on Saturday morning.
The second-stringers were on the field and the backup quarterback threw a quick, short little swing pass to a tight end who was able to twist his body, grab it, turn up the field and run.
Hardly anyone noticed because they were too busy ogling the new quarterback and buzzing about the plays he and his crew were making.
But it was an example of the kind of play that wouldn’t have been possible last year, and the reason has nothing to do with the arrival of Aaron Rodgers, the revamped offense or any of the other additions by the Jets.
Jeremy Ruckert just couldn’t do those kinds of things as a rookie.
He wanted to. He knew that was why the Jets drafted him. But a sprained plantar fascia in his foot simply prevented him from being able to glide the way he did on that one play Saturday, gracefully contort himself, then plant and push off down the field with the ball under his arm.
“I definitely wasn’t feeling good last year physically, but that’s all in the past now,” Ruckert told Newsday on Sunday, opening up for the first time about the injury that crushed most of what should have been a dream rookie season after he was drafted to play for the team he and his family rooted for while he was growing up on Long Island. He hopes the injury is just a foot-related footnote to the start of his career.
“I can kind of sense this is more what they expected out of me,’’ Ruckert said. “I was giving them everything I had last year. It was just so hard mentally and physically dealing with that nagging thing. I would never tell anybody that’s what was bothering me, but it was hard to avoid them seeing it. This year, being healthy and being able to show them what they saw in me from college and in the predraft process, it’s been a load off of a lot of people’s shoulders in this building, including mine. I’m feeling great. The best I’ve felt in a couple years.”
The injury occurred just before the NFL Combine and hampered Ruckert throughout the spring and into his first training camp with the Jets. Every step he took was painful.
While most players spend their time diligently trying to avoid injuries, Ruckert was, at one point, trying to purposely tear the ligament because it would be an easier injury to heal with surgery than what he was going through.
“I went out with the trainers a few times just to see if I could push myself and hopefully unintentionally it would just tear,” he said. “When it’s just lingering and there are these microtears where nothing really gives, it’s a long recovery. There is no real time you can take off because you are walking on it every day.”
It wasn’t until very late in the season that Ruckert finally started to feel comfortable. In Week 17, when starter C.J. Uzomah was injured, Ruckert was able to help replace him. In the next week’s season finale at Miami, Ruckert made the first catch of his career.
After that, things started to come together for him. He went into the offseason with the statistical ice broken and time to heal and get his body in better shape. He was able to get more comfortable with the offense and the expectations that come with being a professional. And by the time voluntary workouts and OTAs rolled around in April and May, he was feeling primed for this coming season.
So were the coaches.
“He had a good offseason and was really strong in OTAs,” Robert Saleh said. “To his credit, he fought all the way through [his rookie season] and now he’s out here and he looks really, really good.”
With Uzomah still on PUP, Ruckert has been getting reps with the first and second teams in this tight end-friendly offense that often employs two on the field. He has lined up as a blocker next to the tackles, in the backfield and split out wide.
“I’ve always been obsessed with the idea of not being told I can only do one certain thing,” he said.
This summer, that isn’t a problem.
The change in Ruckert’s health isn’t the only difference for the Jets compared to last year, and it certainly isn’t the most obvious. Ruckert, along with most Jets fans, spent the offseason riding the Rodgers roller-coaster, waiting for the quarterback to declare his intentions and then for the details to be worked out in the trade with the Packers.
Throughout that process, friends and family were pumping Ruckert for info.
“That was the annoying part before it all happened, everybody asking about it,” he said with a laugh. “They knew better than me, probably. But once it was finally on the news, it definitely got a lot less people asking me and stuff.”
Ruckert said he had to straddle his two worlds — being a Jets fan and being an actual Jet — during those times.
“Everybody knows on Long Island how much they love the Jets and how much they have been waiting for this opportunity,” he said of landing a future Hall of Fame quarterback. “Dealing with all my family and friends back home, you understand the magnitude of it. But also, being a part of this team, you want to be professional and understand he is coming in for one job and you have to follow his lead and be a part of that. Yeah, you get caught up sometimes thinking that it’s pretty cool to be able to say you are catching balls from him and stuff, but it’s mostly just how he is off the field that has been great so far. You don’t really feel like it’s that different. It’s just ball, and he’s been doing it for so long, it makes it so easy for you to learn. It’s an honor to be there.”
Those calls and texts are part of the deal when playing for your hometown team. Everyone you know is rooting for you and your squad. Sometimes those two interests aren’t aligned. Ruckert learned that last season.
Had he been in Houston or Seattle or some other far-off place, his lack of production and playing time would have been more of an afterthought than intertwined with the Jets’ own struggles.
That was what made last year even more challenging for Ruckert when he wasn’t playing much — he was inactive in eight of the 17 games — but couldn’t really tell the folks back home why, exactly. He didn’t want to whine about his foot or use it as an excuse, even though that clearly was what was holding him back.
“I definitely think it was harder here than if it was somewhere else,” he said. “I’m not complaining about it. I’m so lucky to be here . . . I’m not going to complain to anybody or give anybody excuses about why things aren’t happening. I don’t believe in that.”
But even he was getting frustrated last year when the foot would hurt or he’d find out — sometimes as late as Sunday morning — that he wasn’t playing in a game.
“Every time I started to get a little off track and start wondering ‘why me?’ ” he said, “I just started thinking about how lucky I was to be here and how I have dreamed about this as a kid and trying to work back to where they have no choice but to keep me up this year.”
He’d remind himself that there are two extremes that come with being from nearby Long Island and playing for the Jets.
Yes, the lows sting more. Undoubtedly.
But the highs? They figure to be exponentially better.
Now Ruckert, healthy and fleet-footed, is hellbent on experiencing that part of the equation.
“They picked me for a reason,” he said of the Jets. “Everything is falling into place. Being able to end the season like I did last year, pushing me into a good offseason, good OTAs, and now building on that in this training camp, I just keep growing, keep getting better, and I think everything will take care of itself.”