The Jets view Konrad Reuland as a tight end who can both block and catch the football.
The second-year man had 11 receptions on 16 passes thrown to him for 83 yards last season with only three starts. In addition, Reuland said, "I think toward the end of the year especially, I was really heavily involved in the run game."
"I pride myself on kind of being a jack-of-all-trades," he said, "a guy that can do a little bit of everything."
As long as he's helping the team win, he's eager to do anything asked of him.
"If they want me as more of a blocker like they did last year, then that's fine with me," he said. "I'm also excited to show what I can do in the receiving game and running and catching and all that as well."
Reuland and tight ends coach Steve Hagen spend time after each practice in film sessions finding a specific thing for Reuland to work on in the next day's drills. It's a tactic that he has been using since his college playing days.
"A lot of times I see it myself and pick it up in the film," Konrad said. "There are other times where I don't even realize that I'm doing something that's not exactly how they want it, and they'll coach me up on it, too.
"For some people, you have a big glaring weakness and you focus on that every day," he added. "When you get to this level, everyone's pretty good at multiple things, so it's 'Hey, I'm not really doing this as well as I could so I'm going to try to focus on that today.' "
Today's practice, for example, the focus was on footwork, making sure "I was getting my second step in the ground," he said. In the first few days of camp, he worked on keeping his pads low to the ground. "I'm a tall guy," he said, "so the first couple days of pads, you tend to stand up a little bit."
Reuland hoped that the things he had been working on would carry over into last Saturday night's Green & White Scrimmage. He described his performance as "a little bit up and down," as he felt like he blocked well but there was a ball thrown over the middle that he thinks he could have come down with.
"It would've been a tough catch," he said, "but I expect myself to catch every ball if I can get my hands on it."
For the past few days, "basically after the scrimmage," Konrad Reuland has been anticipating the team's first preseason game in Detroit. "I'm just excited to start playing some games and hitting some other people," he said.
The mindset for a preseason game remains the same as that of training camp as far as knowing your assignments and executing the plays go. But "there's nothing like hitting a different color jersey," he said.
In practice, Reuland said, "We're teammates so you're helping people out. You're not trying to get that kill shot when no one's looking. It will be fun to line it up and to just *truly *dislike the people against you."
