You really want to know the essence of training camp? It was here on the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center grass Friday afternoon 15 minutes after the final open practice of the summer. Under a blazing sun with no coaches in sight, Darrelle Revis delivered instructional points to rookie S Josh Bush as LaRon Landry looked on.
Early this afternoon, I caught up with Bush and asked him about the post-practice lesson.
"I asked (Revis), "Tell me a secret as far as press." He's like, 'There's really no secret. It's just technique — it's just about being patient.' I don't really want to say too much — people might grasp on to the idea," Bush said. "But he just told me about pressing tight ends and receivers and things like that."
Bush, a Wake Forest product who was an All-ACC performer last season after intercepting six passes, is adapting to the Jets' coverage schemes.
"At Wake I really played off man a lot, so I really wasn't up in guys' faces like that. Darrelle is pretty much always in peoples' faces, playing at the line of scrimmage," he said. "What better guy to get advice from than him?"
Bush has received valuable reps with the starting unit in August. Landry has been on a practice pitch count, Eric Smith suffered knee/hip injuries against the Bengals and Yeremiah Bell sat out team activities today with a banged-up knee.
"It's very beneficial, but some of the things they're a step ahead of me. So it actually allows me to play a little bit faster because they'll alert something that I may not see or they'll see something before I do," Bush said. "They'll just tell me, 'Hey Bush, this is coming. Watch this.'"
The rook, whose hometown of Lexington, NC is about one hour northeast of Charlotte, will have plenty of interested onlookers Sunday night. Then in two weeks, he'll line up in the regular season for the first time.
"I just want to master the playbook before the season starts," he told me. "I know my job and I know what I have to do on every play, but Coach talked to us yesterday just about mastering the playbook and knowing where everyone else is at."
JETS REPLAY
Remember to tune it to "Jets Replay" 30 minutes after the final gun Sunday night. We will take fan questions from CoverittLive, @nyjets and Facebook.com/Jets throughout the program. You will hear from a player off the field, we will be joined by a player or two on set and we'll get bonus locker room sound from ESPN NY 98.7's "Fifth Quarter Show". Throughout the season, "Jets Replay" will provide a comprehensive wrap of each Jets' home contest.
