Greene Is Expecting His Workload to Grow - New York Times

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. â€" Contrary to popular belief, the list of players affected by the Jets’ acquisition of Tim Tebow does not begin and end with Mark Sanchez. Ranking second â€" if a distant second, perhaps â€" is Shonn Greene, who remembers wondering two months ago whether adding another running option would cut into his workload.

“I did, I did,” Greene said Thursday, after a slight pause. “But then again, you can’t dwell on stuff like that. There’s going to be plenty of carries to go around.”

The Jets are in the throes of organized team activities, that breathless stage of the N.F.L. off-season when all quarterbacks look sharp, all draft picks have impressed and everyone is stronger, leaner and in the best shape of his life.

Even so, with two months before training camp and more than three months before the Sept. 9 season opener against Buffalo, Greene seems to have grasped the Jets’ new reality, one defined by a versatile backup quarterback and a new coordinator intent on establishing a run-first philosophy.

However secretive the Jets have remained about their intended use of Tebow, it is unlikely that the offense will thrive if Greene sputters. He set a career-high with 253 rushing attempts last season, and he said he had been led to believe by the offensive coordinator Tony Sparano that he will surpass that figure in 2012 â€" even if Tebow does end up taking away carries that would have otherwise gone to him or the backup, Joe McKnight.

“We’re not going to disappoint you,” Coach Rex Ryan said. “We’re going to give the ball to Shonn Greene a bunch.”

To be clear, Sparano has not explicitly told that to Greene. The way Sparano figured it, he had no reason to. Greene has heard enough about Sparano’s plans and studied enough of the new playbook to form an impression. Greene loved what he saw â€" a coach determined to employ an approach that leaves no room for interpretation. In constant motion during practice, Sparano points and yells and teaches. He implores his players to play physical. He demands a high tempo.

“Smoke and mirrors aren’t going to win a lot of games,” Sparano said.

The Jets realized as much during their not-so-recent past, when their so-called ground-and-pound philosophy helped them reach two consecutive A.F.C. championship games. Then, a lapsed offensive identity, exacerbated by an uneven defense and a fractured locker room, prevented them from reaching the playoffs last year. Greene topped 1,000 yards for the first time, but he, like many of his teammates, had bouts of inconsistency.

Greene said he was heartened that Sparano favored the power play, a between-the-tackles run in which a lineman, usually a guard, pulls into another inside hole as an extra blocker. It would usually feature Greene, but if called in a Wildcat formation â€" near the goal line, presumably â€" either he or Tebow would emerge as the likely beneficiary. In Miami, that play was often called for Ronnie Brown, whom Greene mentioned as someone who flourished in Sparano’s offense.

“We’re going to run that to death until someone stops us,” Greene said, “and I think that’s the type of back I am.”

In Greene, Sparano saw a running back who possessed the optimal body type for his new offense â€" big, bruising, physical.

“He gets his shoulders squared to the line of scrimmage, he breaks tackles and he runs at the right pad level,” Sparano said. “To me, he has all the qualities I look for.”

Sparano estimated that he had installed about 60 percent of the Jets’ new offense, though nothing yet that could be characterized as quirky or unorthodox. Nothing that incorporates Tebow as anything more than a conventional quarterback. Until then, Sanchez â€" or Tebow â€" will keep handing the ball off to Greene, over and over and over again.

EXTRA POINTS

Darrelle Revis declined to guarantee his presence when players report to training camp July 26, which might point to another contract holdout, his second in three years. “I don’t know if I am or if I’m not,” said Revis, who would not say whether he was satisfied with his current deal, a front-loaded four-year, $32 million contract signed after a 36-day holdout in 2010. “I’m just telling you I’ll be ready for the season.” ... Nick Mangold declined the Jets’ offer to miss part of training camp to watch his sister Holley compete in weight lifting at the London Olympics, and Rex Ryan revealed his surprise by saying that he would have left for his twin brother, Rob.