Mike Westhoff’s pre-draft scouting report called Jeremy Kerley “patient,” “solid” and “tough.”
The Jets’ renowned special-teams coordinator graded the TCU receiver and return specialist highly, making the note, “He is a guy that could do a number of things.” But Westhoff, noticing the wide-open holes Kerley scampered through on an undefeated Rose Bowl team, also scribbled down a question: “How good will he be on his own?”
So when Westhoff met Kerley, after the NFL lockout ended, he sat him down in his office at Jets headquarters and interrogated him.
“Is your picture ever going to be up there?” Westhoff demanded, pointing at enlarged prints of his most dangerous special-teams aces in 10 seasons with the Jets. “We’ve had seven return guys here that finished in the top one, two or three in the NFL.”
“I can be No. 8,” the rookie coolly responded.
That is how a 22-year-old wins over one of the toughest coordinators in football. And it didn’t stop with Westhoff: In two weeks of training camp, without the benefit of offseason practices, Kerley’s new head coach decided he has “a chance to be something special,” the franchise quarterback deemed him a “baller” and the offensive coordinator proudly claimed credit for making him a Jet.
What is it about Kerley? Those who watched him grow up in tiny Hutto, Texas, where he was the first resident ever drafted in the NFL, simply say he has the elusive “it” factor. In Florham Park, the fifth-round pick has earned respect — and some reps with the first-team offense — because of his quickness, eagerness to learn and endearing self-confidence.
In Monday night’s preseason opener at Houston, Kerley is expected to be the starting kick and punt returner. He also should have plenty of chances to show the team what he can do on offense, with the starters playing one quarter and receiver Plaxico Burress staying home with a sprained ankle.
“I’m glad they see a lot of potential in me, but I want them to have a confidence in me during game time,” Kerley said. “Your play is everything.”
The Jets traded up eight spots in April’s draft to nab Kerley, worried they were running out of options and might miss out on the versatile player, whose skill set could help dull the loss of free agent Brad Smith.
It was Brian Schottenheimer, the Jets’ offensive coordinator, who flew to Fort Worth for a private workout that ended up being less about TCU quarterback Andy Dalton and more about Kerley. The player ran routes as well as he ever had, and sensed a genuine chemistry in the film room with Schottenheimer while discussing coverages and route breaks.
The feeling was mutual. Schottenheimer saw the “right look in his eye,” and left campus convinced of what seems to be a unanimous sentiment when it comes to Kerley: There’s something special about this kid.
• • •
When the lockout ended, Schottenheimer phoned Kerley, asking him to report to New Jersey as soon as he could book a flight. Kerley, who was in Fort Worth with his sister and his fiancée, had a rare bout of nerves.
“Kerley is the jokester of them all, but his whole demeanor changed,” said Kristal Juarez, his fiancée and an All-American sprinter at TCU. “He was nervous about the playbook, learning a whole different playbook than college. He said, ‘I don’t want to disappoint anybody.’ ”
He hasn’t so far. And it didn’t take long for Kerley to ditch that nervousness for the “swag” Juarez has known since she met her future husband in the TCU cafeteria the first day of their freshman year. During a recent interview, Kerley nonchalantly mentioned that he would like to play pro baseball after his NFL career ends, even if he’s 40 years old.
Kerley has always held a firm belief that he will succeed, but his high school coaches never recall him being arrogant or boastful — just self-assured in the way elite athletes need to be. During his freshman year at TCU, Kerley asked his former football coach, Lee Penland, if Hutto High School would retire his number if he made it to the NFL.
That number was 1, which Penland hadn’t allowed any of his players to wear in the past. For Kerley, they changed the rules. He was a four-year starting quarterback, given the reins of Hutto’s option offense as a freshman who had never before played the position.
Kerley was also a defensive back, a returner, a punter, a kicker — and an idol for the coaches’ kids, who called him before each game and invited him to their birthday parties. He possessed smarts like a coach’s son and a competitive fire unlike any Penland has seen in 28 years of coaching football in Texas. When the coach tried to take him off a kickoff coverage unit, Kerley begged him not to until he changed his mind.
He was unselfish, too, once overheard apologizing to his fullback after Kerley ran in a touchdown, explaining he made the wrong read and the score should have been his teammate’s. In the state championship game his junior year, Kerley was double-teamed and had no problem handing off to that same fullback, who racked up 226 rushing yards and three touchdowns.
Baseball was actually his first love, with a fastball that cracked 90 mph, Hutto baseball coach Peter Schmidt recalls. Kerley was a four-year letterman in four sports, football bleeding into basketball season, and juggling baseball and track and field in the spring.
When he was a junior, he won a silver medal at the state track and field meet at the University of Texas, hopped in a car, and raced off to Waco for a state playoff baseball game. In extra innings, Kerley made the double play from right field that recorded the final out.
There is no shortage of such moments on the football field: The scrawny freshman planting his foot along the sideline and running over an all-state linebacker; the wily option quarterback keeping the ball on an outside veer play and racing for a 65-yard touchdown against the best team in the state.
“He’d make his read. If it was a give, he’d give it,” said Mickey Bushong, his high school quarterbacks coach. “If it was a pull, he’d pull it, and shame on you. Because when he pulled it, he was pretty much lightning in a bottle.”
• • •
In the town where his parents were high school sweethearts, and one road is named “Kerley Drive,” his athletic success is town legend. He also became a bit of a cult hero at TCU, where the student section made a habit of chanting “Jer-emy Ker-ley” when he went back for punt returns.
Kerley was twice named his conference’s Special Teams Player of the Year and was the Horned Frogs’ leading receiver as a senior, with 56 catches for 575 yards and 10 touchdowns. Last year, he was one of three finalists for the inaugural Paul Hornung Award, given to college football’s most versatile player.
He gained a new perspective on the game as a sophomore, when he and Juarez welcomed their son, Dae’Shone. The young couple lived together in an off-campus apartment, grateful for the support of their parents and grandparents as they juggled parenthood, exams and Division 1 athletics.
Four weeks after giving birth, Juarez resumed training and would later set a school record in the 400 meters. Both she and their son inspire Kerley.
“My priorities were a little mixed up,” Kerley said. “He definitely set something in my mind, that it’s time to pick a different route and think about something other than yourself. I didn’t realize the most important things in my life.”
• • •
While Kerley and Juarez settled in Morris County this month, his parents watched Dae’Shone, who will turn 3 in November. They’ll pick up their rambunctious “live wire” tomorrow night in Houston and bring him home to New Jersey, the start of a new period in all their lives.
Kerley, 5-9 and 188 pounds, is intent on being for the Jets what he has always been in sports: a difference-maker. He ran sprints with Juarez this summer to work on his speed. Despite not having yet signed an NFL contract, he joined Mark Sanchez’s Jets West camp in California in May, ignoring the injury risk so he could be as prepared as possible.
Fifteenth-year receiver Derrick Mason — to whom Kerley surrendered No. 85, out of respect — sees him as a player who can be used inside, outside and in the backfield, an explosive threat who has been soaking up veteran knowledge.
Coach Rex Ryan suggested Kerley as a candidate to run the Wildcat offense.
And the rookie still has that promise to Westhoff. Kerley grins, ready to make good on growing expectations.
“The type of game that I play, I know a lot will be asked of me,” he said. “I don’t take it upon my shoulders to apply any unneeded pressure. The game of football is supposed to be fun.”
As much as I hate to admit it, the Pats DL is going to be brutally tough this year. I trust Mangold to deal with one of Haynesworth or Wilfork, but the Jets are going to have to throw and throw often if they want to beat the Pats I think.
A couple things that I'll be specifically watching for:
