Aaron Glenn, in his wrap up news conference for mandatory minicamp and the entire offseason Thursday, provided an informative AG Talk on the difference between "like" and "love" when it comes to NFL teams entering their annual "dark period" while hurtling toward the start of training camp and the regular season.
"We had the players come in, and we had our team meeting, at which we discussed things that went on throughout the offseason and some expectations of what I want from the guys when they come back," the Jets head coach said after announcing, as is a league tradition at this time of year, the cancellation of the last practice on the camp schedule.
"The guys have given me, the coaching staff and themselves everything we've asked during the offseason. Their work has been outstanding. I like where they're at. But I told the guys I want to love where they're at. And to love it, it's going to take some time."
That time comes in July and August as the Jets polish and prepare their product for Sunday afternoons in the fall. Glenn explained that while camp is camp, he'll change some things up from his first training camp as head coach last year.
"There will be some new wrinkles," he said. "I'm a big fan of not having the same thing over. I want to be able to shock the players' system of doing things different. Sometimes those things can happen at the spur of the moment, because of how the team is operating that day. ... What I want to emphasize are things like competitive stamina, being intentional in practice."
Glenn said there were "a number of terms and phrases" that he wanted to stress to the players in camp, tried and true verbiage that he expressed from the start of the offseason in January through Wednesday's second and last minicamp practice day.
He didn't itemize those terms and phrases for reporters, but it seems a sure thing what two of the items will be: "We want to shock the system" and "I do like where we're at" but also getting to the pont in late summer that "I love exactly where we are as a team."