Garrett Wilson has his unique way of telling Jets fans that his body is fine and ready to go again. Kind of like what it must be like to try to cover him as he goes through his patented improvisation route-running.
"I feel great," Wilson said Thursday in his first remarks this offseason about rebounding from his knee injury last midseason. "I surprised myself a little bit. It took a little longer initially than I expected."
So that's not so good, Garrett?
"Then we got to the offseason," he continued, "and all of a sudden, I had time and I was ready to go a little bit sooner."
Whew, so it's all good, now, right?
"So now it's just getting back comfortable with playing, getting used to having a guy on me running routes," he said. "Stuff you can't really mimic until you're doing the real thing. I feel great, but as far as getting back to myself, I've got some work to do. I'm excited, though, I'm excited. It's going to be a journey and, um ... yeah, man, I'm not that far off."
Not that far off? You're making us nervous, G.
"I don't want to scare nobody. I'm good," he said with a smile and chuckles from reporters. "But I've got a different standard that I just want to get back to, and that's the mission."
Bottom line is Wilson seems fine physically to the people who need to know.
"Garrett looks good, he looks really good," head coach Aaron Glenn said after Thursday's OTA practice at 1 Jets Drive. "I mean, he's typical Garrett, so that doesn't surprise me how he's going out there, operating. ... He's getting all of his reps."
Including with the Jets' newly arrived old-school QB, Geno Smith.
"Garrett is a great player," Smith said. "My job is to help bring out the best in him, and vice versa, and that goes for all of my teammates. Really, I just want to continue to build on our chemistry. We're working extremely hard on the field and every single day I can see the progress. That's a good sign, but obviously, we're a long ways away and we got a lot of work to do."
Wilson said of Smith: "Yeah, man, he's awesome to be around. He's a really good communicator, he's able to digest this stuff that we're all learning very well. And he throws a real friendly ball, one that's really easy to catch, you have no problem running right at it. ... I'm looking forward to getting to know him even more."
The work Wilson talked about that might have triggered some fans sounds like it's taking place in Garrett's inner world, the one he spent time immersed in as he rehabbed the knee he injured against Denver in London in Game 6 and aggravated three weeks later at home vs. Cleveland, ending his fourth pro season.
"It was tough, man," he said of that long second half on the sidelines. "It was one of those things where, in hindsight, I say maybe [I] needed it. I hadn't been out for an extended period of time up to that point and it really allowed me to change my point of view and look at things from a different angle.
"Playing football is what I was brought here to do. It hurt me. It's never been brought upon me like that. So it was a little different, but I just needed to change my scope on things, and that's what is at risk every time I take the field. Maybe I was getting a little too comfortable."
Too comfy how, exactly?
"Just as far as going out to practice and not knowing what's at stake every time," he said. "We play a dangerous game and I think it's been since my senior year without missing time. ... I never really had an injury happen on the field. And when it goes like that, all of a sudden, you get so used to playing, that next Sunday's coming, and that practice, you're going to have that opportunity to correct that route that you had in the game.
"But the reality is you've got to have a sniper mindset. You get one chance at this thing, and that kind of brought it into perspective for me."
It all sounds like the kind of mental gymnastics that don't feel good at the time but now have made Wilson as good as new and maybe even better. He talked growlingly not just about his new QB but about RB Breece Hall, his 2022 Jets draftmate who signed a multiyear extension early this month. Wilson said he was "super-excited" to hear that the Jets "locked him down," and that's another thought experiment for No. 5 about good relationships truncated and great expectations unrealized.
"It's not a failure," Wilson stressed of his and the Jets' intertwined journeys. "It got delayed. It sucks to see some of the guys that we came in with not here ... but that's the reality of the thing when you just don't go play good ball.
"So the reality is we've got to figure this thing out. And we are."
