At the start of training camp in July, when Will McDonald IV, as far as many fans knew, was just another young, promising but unproven Jet, he gave a hint about how he was approaching his second year in green and white.
"Today is today," he said. "As long as I get 1 percent better today, I'm cool with that because tomorrow's not here yet, so that's not something I'm focused on. I'm just going to focus on today and what I need to do."
McDonald is not in need of new spectacles because his focus is sharp and he's been putting a sack spectacle in the first half of the season. He remained on fire off the edge with a second-quarter sack of Russell Wilson at Pittsburgh. That lifted him past Aidan Hutchinson, the Lions' injured pass rusher, and into second place among all NFL individual sackers with 8 sacks, one behind the Giants' Dexter Lawrence at 9. McDonald also has 12 QB hits, tied for sixth in the league.
WMcD is also on a hellacious pace in recent team history. The last Jet with that many QB pelts through the first 7 games of a season was Shaun Ellis with 9 sacks in 2003. Mark Gastineau, the Jets' original No. 99, is still the all-time pacesetter with 12 of his then-NFL-record 22 sacks coming in the first 7 weeks of 1984.
Additionally, McDonald did something that had been missing from the Jets' defensive arsenal through the first 6 games — he crossed into the Pitt backfield and swatted down a first-period Wilson pass. That's what we like to call a PD-BLS (pass defense behind the line of scrimmage) and it was only the Green & White's second this season. Solomon Thomas had the first in Game 2 at Tennessee.
The PD was in fact McDonald's first behind the line as a pro, but it was the fourth time a Jets defender had rejected Wilson, who has been around so long that his first batdown against the Jets was executed by LB Calvin Pace, when Wilson was a Seattle rookie in 2012. Muhammad Wilkerson in 2016 and C.J. Mosley last year at Denver also smacked down Wilson passes in the backfield.
Can we expect more sizzle from McDonald? Why not, since a superior pass rusher that Will was eager to learn from this season is finally in the house and preparing to contribute to the Jets' game at New England on Sunday.
"Obviously, we've got a guy like Haason [Reddick] coming in," McDonald said presciently. "He's definitely going to help me get better at the game."
See the best photos of the Jets back on the practice field on Wednesday to kick off Patriots week.
Conk Breaks Out of His Shell
It was a most unusual day for Tyler Conklin at the Steelers.
For starters, the Jets' starting tight end scored a touchdown. He's done that before in his career, of course, but one thing that didn't happen last season, when he tied his career high for receptions and surpassed his personal best in receiving yards, was No. 83 scoring a TD.
"I had a sigh of relief," Conklin told newyorkjets.com's Eric Allen this week about hitting paydirt in Pittsburgh. "It's been too long since I've been in the end zone."
"We had a great playcall and Conk was wide open," Aaron Rodgers said about the 1-yard play-action TD toss that gave the Jets their short-lived 15-6 second-quarter lead. "I love that we scored on the TD to Conk."
The last time Conklin scored before Sunday was about a week shy of two years ago, when he had two in one game, the Jets' 22-17 home loss to New England on Oct. 30, 2022. Since then, he's played in every Jets game but had gone 32 games with all kinds of catches and yards but no points.
That wasn't the only unusual element of Conklin's primetime performance. There was his entire receiving line. The TD catch was his first of four targets on the night. Then he had catches of 1, 5 and zero yards on the Jets' last drive.
When is the last time a Jets tight end, or any NFL tight end for that matter, had a 4-7-1 receiving line? It hasn't happened often in league history, but when it has, there has been a current or past Viking involved. Besides Conklin, who started his career with Minnesota in 2018, only two other TEs had games in which they had at least 4 receptions, at least 1 TD catch, and fewer than 10 receiving yards.
The most recent to do it was one of Conk's Vikings teammates, Irv Smith Jr., who also went 4-7-1 in Minny's 24-16 win at Miami in 2022. And almost 50 years ago, Stu Voigt had a 4-9-1 line in the Vikes' 17-0 road win over Chicago in 1974.
"Not much yards per catch, man," Conk said as he considered his intriguing numbers. "But I needed a touchdown. I hope it opens the floodgates to a whole bunch more."
