Delicious Irony: Abram Elam’s Runback
Erik Boland of Newsday has an amusing story about Abram Elam and his return. It seems that his epic runback that opened the game up for the Jets was one in which most of his teammates had reservations of his being able to accomplish.
Last week, defensive backs coach Jerome Henderson decided to have some fun with his group. He passed out a test with one of the questions reading this way, as recalled yesterday by coach Eric Mangini: “If we pick the ball off and go 99 yards for a touchdown, who is most likely to do the following.”
Henderson had a list of options, Mangini said, “and one of them was: ‘It doesn’t matter; he can’t run it back that far anyways.’”
Players had to assign a defensive back for each answer, and for the latter one, Mangini said, “every DB put Abe down for that answer.”
That would be Abram Elam, who started in place of injured safety Eric Smith on Sunday and ended up making the most memorable play of the Jets’ 26-17 win.
Based on the way he was chugging down the stretch, it was a good thing it wasn’t seven yards longer because his teammates might have been right.
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Least likely to ever have to worry about returning an INT 99 yard for a TD: Drew Coleman.
The funny part is that if he did actually have to go 99 yards (and not the 92 he went) he probably wouldn’t have made it….Lynch would have caught him.
18andOne, i think it could be argued that Justin Miller would be the carrier of that illustrious distinction. sometimes i wonder if that guy even knows what an interception is…
I do think Elam closes fast and hard within 10 yds., and is a fit for the SS position as well as anyone else we have.