07/26 — This evening was beautiful, splashed by the setting sun, even a bit brisk in the Long Island breezes. Nevertheless, the Jets offense scuffled a bit during the fifth practice of training camp.

Sometimes the defense had something to do with it. S Artrell Hawkins had a strong bump that knocked WR David Clowney to the ground at the end of an end-around (with Kellen Clemens as a lead blocker). Some thought Clowney had cleared the sideline, but no flag was thrown. Clowney, the fast first-year man, bounced up with no problem.

A little later, in 7-on-7 drills, CB Drew Coleman, having a nice day, stayed stride for stride with Chansi Stuckey and deflected the ball or distracted Stuckey into an incompletion.

LBs Eric Barton (on Chad Pennington) and Matt Chatham (on Kellen Clemens) had solid PDs.

But sometimes the offense did it to itself. In fact, on back-to-back plays, first TE Dustin Keller, then G Alan Faneca false-started. As Keller ran his penalty lap counterclockwise around the Hofstra grass field, Faneca was running his second lap of the practice clockwise.

QB Brett Ratliff continued to do some nice work, only to turn the ball over. For instance, he had consecutive completions — a long ball that Clowney caught in front of Coleman (turnabout is fair play, I've heard) followed by a sideline hookup with TE Bubba Franks despite LB David Bowens' coverage.

But earlier, the red-jerseyed Ratliff suffered a blitz "sack" from rushing LB Marques Murrell. And later, Ratliff put the ball on the ground for the second time today, once in the morning, this time on a strip-sack, and put in his second lap.

Clemens was spotted jawing with Kris Jenkins. Serious? Hardly. Kellen came back to the offense with a smile on his face after his close encounter with the loosy-goosy big man.

Kicker Joe Smith came in for the mid-practice kickoffs, removing some of the reps that Mike Nugent would normally handle. Smith hit many of his kickoffs high (4.0-seconds-plus hangtimes) and put a real nice ball deep into the corner of the end zone.

Nugent ended practice by going 5-for-7 on his FG tries. Against the regulation posts on the grass field into a tricky wind, he thumped his first four, missed a pair from 50 yards wide right, then thumped his last one from 55.

In the VIP area for the late practice was longtime Jets ticket director John Buschhorn.