There are times when a team has to rely on Plan C.
The Jets selected University of Miami wide receiver Santana Moss in the first round of the 2001 NFL Draft and thought he'd handle their punt return duties, but he tore cartilage in his left knee during training camp and was inactive for 11 games.
They then made a trade with New Orleans for second-year veteran Chad Morton, but he was sidelined for the season after suffering a high ankle sprain during New York's Week 3 game against San Francisco.
Which led to the Jets signing Craig Yeast four games into the season. A Cincinnati fourth-round pick in 1999 out of Kentucky, the wide receiver had been released on the last day of training camp.
Spending two seasons with the Bengals, he averaged nearly 10 yards per punt return with two touchdowns: an 86 yarder against Baltimore and an 81 yarder against Cleveland as a rookie.
"I sat at home for four weeks, but you know this is a business," Yeast said. "I was the third man in and ended up with the Jets for the last 11 weeks of the season, and through the one playoff game that year against the Raiders. It was a pretty good experience for me."
It was an experience made possible when he won over legendary special teams coach Mike Westhoff.
"He was a tough one," Yeast said. "I think the biggest thing for me when I got there was, he told me that he wanted me to return the football, and he brought me there to return it. And my No. 1 thing was, if I see it, I'm going to hit it.
"I believe he liked that about me as a returner. He gave me an opportunity and I did my best to try to take advantage of that opportunity."
At 5-foot-7 and 165 pounds, Yeast certainly wasn't the largest guy on the team, but very few could match his 4.3-40 speed.
"My role was to be a punt-, kick-returner. That's what I did," Yeast said. "I always felt in the NFL, I could have been a wide receiver and played every day. But that really wasn't in the cards. The job that I had was to be a special teams player. And not being a very big guy, the Lord blessed me with some speed and I just tried to play to the best of my ability."
Yeast's first game with the Green & White was against Miami in Week 5, and the 21-17 victory – in which he had two kick returns for a 24-yard average and a punt return for 7 yards – is one of his fondest memories as a Jet.
"It was my very first game playing at the stadium in the Meadowlands and that was a big thing for me," he said. "I felt like I had a good game returning, and I remember coming out in the Meadowlands and seeing all the people. I'd never played there, never experienced Meadowlands, and I got to play a lot of games there in that second half of the year.
"But the first one was the coolest one for me. I love the game of football and know the history of it, and just really enjoyed that first game playing in the stadium."
Yeast also enjoyed playing in front of the crowd that filled that stadium.
"Jets fans, man, I tell you what, it's a tough crowd but they ride with their team," he said. "When they're up, they ride with them. When they're down, they ride with them. But they will say what they feel like they need to say without any filter.
"You know, those Jet fans, they were always good to me. They just really love the Jets, and you can feel it by the energy that they bring all the time."
After moving on to play in the Canadian Football League for Hamilton in 2003, Yeast stood out over four seasons with the Tiger-Cats, playing wide receiver with 158 catches for 2,709 yards and 13 touchdowns. What makes him most proud of his football career?
"That I had an opportunity to play at the professional level, period. Seven and a half, eight years in total, I think it is just really a blessing to have the opportunity to play with some of the greatest players in the world," Yeast said.
"I look at how things are now and I'm not sure in today's time if I would have had a chance to play college football in the SEC being my size, regardless of my speed. Let alone have an opportunity to play in the NFL. It was difficult when I was going through it, but I think it would be a lot more difficult now.
"But it's just a blessing to have the opportunity that God gave me to play at that level because, I want to say, that less than one percent of all kids that play football get that opportunity. I'm just blessed that I had that chance."
Even with football always being a part of his DNA, Yeast needed a little nudging to take a chance on transitioning from playing to coaching.
"When I retired from the CFL, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I was doing some camps and a couple coaches asked me if I'd be interested in coaching," Yeast said. "I decided to go and do it in 2008, and I've been doing it ever since. I just love the game. I love giving back and I just enjoy helping young men and some young women reach their goals or at least chase their goals.
"I enjoy being around the kids in general. I know what it's like to be a kid chasing my dreams. I also know what it's like to be a little poor kid that didn't have much and had to work for everything.
"I've had a lot of experiences in my life, and I enjoy having the opportunity to be around kids and share my experiences with them and help them along the way. I mean, really, that's the reason why I do it. I don't do it for winning, I do it for the kids.
"I take great pride in having an opportunity to help young men and women go to the next level in their life, whether it's the workforce, whether it's college. And whether they go to college and participate in a sport, I just enjoy helping and being around them."
Now back in his hometown of Harrodsburg, Kentucky, Yeast is going into his fifth season as the head coach at Mercer County High School.
"I was the head coach at Kentucky Wesleyan, which is a Division II college in Owensboro, Kentucky," Yeast said. "And there were some circumstances. My mother was really sick at the time, the coach at the high school had resigned, and they called and asked me if I'd be interested in the job.
"The more we talked and the more I thought about the situation, and having conversations with my wife about it, and prayed about it, the right thing to do was for me to come home and coach at Mercer County. But more importantly, to come home and just make sure that I was there for my mom in her last days."
Yeast and his wife, Tori, have two adult children: Russ and Kiyah.
"Russ is (a safety) with the Bengals. He was drafted by and spent two years with the Rams, and at the beginning of last year, the Bengals picked him up and put him on their practice roster. So he's got an opportunity to come in when they start OTAs next week and try to win a job, just like a lot of the other guys in the NFL," Yeast said.
"Kiyah ran track at the University of Louisville. Her college career is over and she's currently training with her college coach to run some professional meets. They both have master's degrees from college. That's the most important thing to me.
"And my wife is a phenomenal wife. She is a wonderful mother. She has done so much for me and for our kids. We're just very, very proud parents of Russ and Kiyah."
