Forte makes forceful debut at Jets practice

The Jets finally got to see new running back Matt Forte on the field during team drills on Wednesday.

Forte, who has been out since the beginning of training camp with a hamstring injury, looked good in the practice. He caught several passes from quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick and burst through the holes on running plays.

“It was great to see Matt,” Fitzpatrick said. “It was really kind of the first extensive work I’ve had with him. But I figured, with as much ball as he’s played and how great of a player he’s been, he’d be able to fit right in and we’d mesh pretty well. He did a really nice job today, but we’ve been communicating the whole time. It was nice to see him with pads on today.’’

Forte has been doing positional drills, but this was the first time he was on the field with the entire offense. He is not expected to play Friday against the Redskins, but this is a clear sign he should be fine for the regular season.

“It’s good to see him out there running around,” coach Todd Bowles said. “He has to get in football shape. We weren’t tackling or hitting. He was at three-quarters speed so we look forward to him getting better. If he doesn’t have any setbacks [Thursday], we’ll move forward.”

Defensive end Muhammad Wilkerson did team drills for the second straight day and reported no problems. Wilkerson is recovering from January surgery to repair a broken bone in his leg.

“I felt better than I did yesterday, so that’s a good thing,” said Wilkerson, who was not ruled out for Friday by Bowles.

Bowles did not disclose what the plan is for the quarterbacks in Friday’s game. He said all four could play.

“The flow of the game will tell that,” Bowles said.

Rookie Christian Hackenberg did not play at all in the preseason opener with the Jaguars. Bowles said he expects Hackenberg to play Friday, which is a bit of a surprise since the first- and secondteams will get more playing time in this game.

“We’ll see how it works out,” Bowles said.

Bowles stopped practice to have the team run sprints, apparently unhappy with how the practice was going.

“They needed to practice better,” Bowles said. “We understand each other pretty good. I thought it was a very good practice after that.”

Center Nick Mangold was given a second straight day off. Bowles called it a “rest day.” … Receiver Brandon Marshall was excused for personal reasons for the second straight practice.