Rontez Miles disclosed a message that new coordinator Brant Boyer delivered at his special teams meeting before Saturdays' Jets-Giants clash.
"Coach Boyer actually called it out in the meeting," Miles said. "He told the room, 'I think Rontez is going to block a punt today,' just because of the way they ran their scheme and the way I rush. He called it before it even happened so it wasn't a surprise."
It might be considered a small surprise that any Jets teams coach would foresee such a play. The Jets hadn't blocked a kick of any kind in any pre- or regular-season games since 2013.
Yet there were Miles and Bruce Carter crashing in on Giants punter Brad Wing from opposite ends of the line, converging on the point where Wing-ed foot was about to meet pigskin. Carter got credit for the rejection and Lache Seastrunk for the recovery that gave the Jets the ball on the Giants 14 midway through the first quarter.
"To be honest, it looked like Bruce was under me," said Miles, who had another great outside punt rush in the next quarter. "But I feel like we both were back there. If he wouldn't have got there, I would've got there. If I wouldn't have got there, he would've got there. So it was a good play by both us."
Miles' good play at safety and on special teams is standing him in good stead as Tuesday's first roster cutdown to 75 players and Saturday's final cut to 53 loom. This is 'Tez's fourth summer with the Green & White so he's been through this drill before.
"I feel I'm supposed to make the team every year. I know I can play football. Obviously I do have film," he said, although all things considered, he'd like to hang with the Green. "I've been blessed to stick around with the same organization, which is a blessing because that's hard to do in this game, at this level of play."
And it sounds as if Miles really wants to contribute to the 2016 Jets, on defense but also on his favorite special teams.
"The play this year speaks for itself," he said. "There's a lot of things we're doing better than last year. That's no shade on any coach, it's just that we're looking better and we have depth, too. This is probably going to be the hardest cutting process I've been involved in since I've been here. This team is loaded with a lot of great players."
Is Rontez Miles one of them? "We're going to see," he said with a smile.
