07/27 — It came off almost as if scripted. The day after Curtis Martin announced his retirement, Thomas Jones announced his arrival.

In an early 11-on-11 drill in the first practice of Jets training camp, Jones showed some of what he'll bring to the table at tailback by taking a Chad Pennington handoff off left guard and striding quickly, muscularly through the hole for what would have been a 15- or 20-yard gain.

The crowd of about 1,800 stood and cheered.

Jones also showed his cuts and quicks on a short dumpoff that he took back up the middle.

Other than T.J., the first half of the first practice proved the adage about early defense being ahead of early offense.

In 7-on-7 work, LB Eric Barton tomahawked a pass breakup against Jones, CB Hank Poteat picked off Kellen Clemens, Laveranues Coles dropped a Pennington deep ball after slipping past CB David Barrett, and DE Michael Haynes met and shut down RB Danny Ware.

But then the offense battled back. Brad Smith, working at WR among many spots, slowed up to catch an underthrown bomb from Clemens.

And Pennington got sharper. After running an early lap right behind Marques Tuiasosopo for missed handoffs, No. 10 started finding his receivers. The best pass play of the morning was Pennington hitting TE Chris Baker with safety Kerry Rhodes getting beaten in the coverage. Then came a quick hitter to Jerricho Cotchery against a blitz and a beautifully thrown deep in-cut to Justin McCareins in front of Barrett.

With first-round DB Darrelle Revis not yet signing and reporting, second-round LB David Harris was the first-year man in the spotlight, and he showed quick, strong moves, especially in closing for the tackle on a short Clemens pass to TE Joe Kowalewski.

Head coach Eric Mangini is now doing his daily news conference. We'll report on that shortly.