A closer look at New York Jets’ Santonio Holmes

Santonio Holmes is the Jets number 1 receiver, but is he healthy?

As my buddy Alan wrote about just the other day, the flag football event hosted by Santonio Holmes and his foundation “III and Long” was a major success and I would like to shout out to our friends at uSTADIUM for putting on a great day. While at the event, I was lucky enough to be able to talk to Santonio Holmes along with ESPN, SNY, and many other major outlets about his status for this season.

To start off, I have to say Holmes was a great guy who did not back down from any question that was thrown his way. Some questions were more detailed than others, but I truly believe Tone was telling the truth in everything that he said. As much as Jets fans may want it to happen, I find it hard to believe Holmes will be available week one for the Jets. Holmes said that

“…it’s really difficult to learn how to walk again. You don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. To lose a ligament and have separation in your joints and have screws placed in there, it takes a while to get back into the swing of things.”

Holmes also went on to talk about how he has not yet started running and is doing very limited football activities during rehab at the Jets facility.

One positive thing I walked away from the interview with is that Holmes is a very optimistic guy, or at least he is in regard to this serious injury. Before the injury last season, Tone had never suffered any significant injury throughout his whole career. Holmes said that not once did he have doubts that this would end his career, and he believes he can definitely come back and contribute.

At one point Holmes was asked if he felt he could come back and be the same player that he was in the past. After a brief pause, Tone said that he believed he definitely would be the same player mentally, but did not say anything about physically playing at the same level. I am not sure if Holmes took the question a different way than I did, or he just did not want to say anything that could give out too much detail.

Holmes went on to talk about his relationship with Geno Smith, which I will be writing about in another article soon. I have to admit, my expectations for Santonio Holmes are not very high this season. At this point in his career, it certainly can not be easy for Holmes to try to battle back from an injury as serious as this one. While some believe he will never play for the Jets again, I will have to disagree. I think Holmes will play this season, but I do not expect him to be the same player he was in the past.

Let me know what your expectations are for Holmes this season.