JACE RAISING THE BAR
After rookie struggles, Jets’ Amaro has high hopes for 2015 season
Jace Amaro has a secret. The secondyear Jets tight end has big plans for the 2015 season. He’s just not saying what those are.
“I have a big goal this year and I’m ready to accomplish that,” Amaro said. That goal is? “That’s something I haven’t told anybody yet,” he said.
Surely, the goal has something to do with improving on an upanddown rookie year. Amaro, taken in the second round out of Texas Tech in 2014, caught 38 passes for 345 yards and two touchdowns. He struggled in runblocking and had six dropped passes.
“I just felt like I had so much to work on,” Amaro said of his rookie season. “I worked on it in the spring from January on. I knew exactly what I had to do. Nobody has to tell me what my weaknesses were. I downright know what they are. With all that, I’ve just got to get better.”
The plan is to play more to Amaro’s strengths in Chan Gailey’s system. He will be used as an Hback and split out as a receiver. But Amaro also is working hard at becoming a better inline tight end, and that starts with blocking.
At this time last year, Amaro looked lost. He had a rough training camp and some of that carried over into the season. Now, he says he knows what’s coming.
“I feel more confident in myself,” Amaro said. “I feel more glued to the system. I feel ready to go. I’m not a rookie. I’m going into my second year. I’ve seen it all. I played against some pretty good teams last season. I’ve seen a lot of defenses in practice and in games. I feel like I’ve got a lot more used to the speed. I think that’s the biggest thing, just adapting to that. I feel a lot more comfortable.”
The drops were the most noticeable problem for Amaro because they were glaring. Oddly, Amaro would make a really tough catch then drop one that was right in his hands.
“I felt like I made the real tough catches and dropped some of the easy ones,” he said. “That’s just concentration and just being too itchy to get the ball. That’s more of a mentality than anything. I’ve just got to go out there and have fun and not being afraid of making mistakes.”
Amaro is trying to keep a lowprofile these days after finding himself in the headlines this spring. Amaro made a remark in a radio interview about new coach Todd Bowles holding players more accountable than former coach Rex Ryan did. He said there were punctuality issues on the team last year. Ryan, now the head coach of the Bills, fired back in Sports Illustrated and again on the radio. Amaro could not believe the media brushfire his comments started.
“I’m not trying to be in the spotlight. I’m not a rahrah guy,” Amaro said. “I’m not going to spark things up in the media. I’m just going to say how it is. I had no intentions of talking bad about any of my coaches. That’s a privilege he gave me before anyone else to play in the NFL. I loved Rex.
“He was a great coach. He’s a great guy. I told him after the season I was glad he drafted me. But you know he’s fired up. That’s the way he’s always been. It was shocking that it happened like that. But I had no intentions of causing any disruption with that guy or his team.”
Amaro now hopes his play will create more headlines than his words.