'It's Innate, Part of Who He Is'
A tough defender and tenacious tackler, Ponds' 54 stops last season were the third most among all P4 cornerbacks. Ponds blazed to a 4.31 second time in the 40-yard dash at IU's Pro Day and he had a 43-inch vertical at the combine. Many draft pundits looked at Ponds and drew comparisons to a young Aaron Glenn, but the Jets HC has said the rookie corner will blaze his own trail.
"It's how do you lead the team from an action standpoint and from a verbal standpoint," Glenn said. "And he has all those attributes. Listen, I'm not throwing all that on him right now, but you clearly see those are some of the things that he has. It's innate, it's a part of who he is. Listen, it makes me proud that when people see him and they say -- I mean I wish people looked at me and said I played like him because, heck, he's a damn good player. We are going to take it slow with him, allow him to really learn outside and inside, and, man, I'm glad we have him."
'Kind of Crazy'
Rookie TE Kenyon Sadiq, an Oregon product selected No. 16 overall, said Cooper Jr. "catches about every ball in the air" and runs "great" routes. Five of the Jets' eight draft picks participated in the college football playoffs including each of their top four selections. But Cooper, who had TD receptions against Alabama in the quarterfinals and Sadiq's Ducks in the semifinals plus 5 catches for 71 yards in the national championship win over Anez Cooper's Miami Hurricanes, and Ponds, who had a pick-6 of Oregon QB Dante Moore on the game's first snap and added 5 tackles plus a game-high 3 pass breakups against the 'Canes, became the championship pair who have joined forces once again with the Jets.
"I was literally talking to Omar about (the Ponds pick-6) last night and we were even talking literally five minutes ago on the field about just their defense," Sadiq said. "You know how well they played and stuff like that. We always kind of just -- it's just kind of crazy you're playing against them, you're prepping against them, scouting them three, four months ago and now you're on the team as them, like David [Bailey] and stuff like that, so it's kind of crazy."