ALL FIRED UP
Jets’ LB C.J. Mosley is ready for big season after missing almost two years
C.J. Mosley wants the NFL world to know he’s still an elite linebacker.
So when he overheard a fan heckling him during the Green and White scrimmage on Aug. 7, saying, “Make sure you play more than three quarters.”
Mosley clapped back.
“I’m a m-----f------ dog! Don’t forget that,” Mosley shouted before sitting down.
And even though Mosley’s been away from the game for two seasons, his resume still confirms that.
The Jets veteran has been All-Pro second-team four times and is a four-time Pro Bowler. It seems like it’s been forever since that version of Moskey has been seen, but that’s exactly why he’s become fixated on making sure the league puts some respect on his name.
“I would put myself in the top five,” Mosley told the Daily News on Wednesday. “The things that I bring to our football team and our defense I feel like
I’ll always be a top tier linebacker.”
Oddly, the fan interaction actually reminded Mosley of how much he missed the environment an NFL game brings.
“When you’re on the field that’s your space. When you go on the football field and you just let it shine and let it all out,” Mosley said. “So that’s kind of what I missed when I was back on the field for the Green and White game. It was just kind of fun to be back in the atmosphere, having the fans there and everything.”
For this season, Mosley dropped his weight to 231 to fit Jets head coach Rob- ert Saleh’s defense. And the returns have been evident early.
“For a guy, not to say he’s the oldest, but he’s played a little bit. This is as good of movement as I’ve ever seen from him,” Jets defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said. “Excited to see what he can do within this defense.”
A big comeback year should be inevitable for Mosley in 2021 and achieving that, according to him, is simple.
“Just having a great individual play and having a great defense,” Mosley said. “If we put some dubs up this year people will pay attention.”
A LOST SEASON
The domination from the Jets’ 2019 Week 1 game against the Buffalo Bills will be on the minds of Jets fans for years to come. But Mosley actually dislikes hearing about that game.
“It’s been two years, I’m tired of seeing the thing. I was in awe a little while too,” Mosley said. “I’m just excited to put new stuff on tape. I got so much more I can do and so much more I can give to this team and the fans.”
The performance against the Bills was a double-edged sword for Mosley. He balled out, put up an impactful statline and justified his five-year, $85 million deal. He almost single-handedly won that game for the Jets, recording six tackles with a pick-six and a fumble recovery in the first half alone.
Late in the third quarter, with the Jets up 16-0, Mosley saw Bills’ John Brown streaking down the middle of the field towards the end zone and ran with him. Josh Allen fired a missile to Brown to try to score a touchdown.
But Mosley was hip to hip with Brown and dove while sticking his left hand out to break the pass up and fell on the turf. He slid on the ground, bounced up and fanned an incomplete pass sign. Marcus Maye and Brian Poole rushed to their linebacker to celebrate.
Then Mosley jogged away with a noticeable limp, grabbing his groin and waving for his backup to replace him. His day was done.
The injury sidelined him for five weeks. Before the Jets Week 7 matchup against the New England Patriots, Mosley declared his return. But after going through warmups, the pain was still there.
“I kind of shot myself in the foot when I said, ‘I’m playing in the game,’” Mosley said laughing. “Well I told the defense, I told everybody, I’m playing. So, I had to thug it out.”
He gutted through the game but struggled moving around and left in the fourth quarter after re-aggravating his groin injury. That night basically ended his season. He eventually got surgery and was placed on injury reserve in December with a return in 2020 that never happened.
OPT OUT
Mosley started the 2020 offseason training and rehabbing his injury at the Jets facility. Then the coronavirus pandemic shut down sports and all the team’s facilities.
As COVID-19 cases rose, Mosley made the tough decision to opt out of the season.
“It was definitely hard, especially missing all of last year. That thought popped in my head like ‘Alright you got a whole other year you won’t be playing,’” Mosley recalled. “So, I had to really stay connected to the game. Stay focused on staying healthy. It sounded good opting out. But you still had to be a pro and stay on top of your game.”
So Mosley created a gym in the basement of his New Jersey home.
Clinton Mosley, C.J.’s father, witnessed a plethora of his son’s workouts that offseason. He said his son would sometimes start grinding in the morning and wouldn’t stop until evening.
“Whether the regiment that day for him was light or hard, the initial thing he always did was get up and do it. And he had the determination the whole time,” the elder Mosley said. “Man, there’s nothing hungrier than somebody that sees a plate in front of them and they can’t reach it.”
C.J. carried that energy throughout the offseason as he geared up for his long-awaited return in 2021.
But when the Jets 2020 season arrived, Mosley was on the couch watching every game, usually with his family in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He was in as much agony as his teammates seeing his club start 0-13 and finish 2-14.
Through the dreadful year Mosley empathized with the fanbase’s suffering too.
“You kind of see what the fans see sitting on a couch,” Mosley said. “You see all the stuff on the couch.”
The people Mosley grew an appreciation for were the Jets players. Beyond their record he respected how his teammates dealt with the COVID-19 protocols and still BMosley carried themselves professionally. ut after a long layoff for Mosley, he’s ready for Jets — and himself — to make noise in 2021.
“I feel like we set the bar pretty high in this preseason. And it wasn’t a fluke at all in my opinion,”
said after the Jets went undefeated during the preseason. “So just have that mentality that we can play and be in these close games and win games.”
If Mosley can reach his lofty self expectations, that will certainly lead to more wins than the casual Jets fan anticipates.