New York Jets News: Santonio Holmes, Stephen Hill
New York Jets wide receiver Santonio Holmes is still recovering from a Lisfranc injury that caused him to play in just four games in the 2012 season. Holmes is still in the rehab process, and it has been a slow process for the 29-year-old Ohio State product. Rex Ryan stated earlier this month that Holmes could end up on the PUP list to start training camp, and it sounds like his recovery from the Lisfranc injury has been incredibly slow. Although it is a very serious injury, Holmes should be healed by now, and it sounds like things have been even more serious than usual for the Jets wideout.
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Holmes, per the Newark Star-Ledger, did not comment on whether or not he would be able to play in the Jets Week 1 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and that’s a cause for more concern. He was also noncommittal on whether he would be participating in training camp, and it does sound like the PUP list is a very real possibility for Holmes.
The Jets wide receiver corps looks terrible right now, and that’s not an ideal situation for either Mark Sanchez or Geno Smith to step into. While Sanchez is probably used to playing with subpar wide receivers around him, Smith was blessed with having the cream of the crop in Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey at West Virginia. With Holmes potentially out to start the season, the Jets would need a lot more from Stephen Hill, who was incredibly inconsistent, as expected, last season.
The project wideout out of Georgia Tech, however, has made minimal gains this offseason, as ESPN New York’s Rich Cimini reports that Hill continues to struggle with drops in minicamp. Hill has plenty of athletic ability and raw talent, but he is still a project player and has shown little development following his rookie season. He came out of college as a terrible route-runner and with inconsistent hands, and the continued drops make me believe that the Jets are in for another up-and-down year from Stephen Hill. Per Cimini, those drops were bad ones, and they even drew some disappointing comments from Santonio Holmes.