As the Jets were getting ready to, well, jet across the Atlantic Ocean late Thursday to play in London for the first time since 2021, tight end Tyler Conklin said that he has two basic concerns: "The jet lag and the time change."
NFL teams have been playing games in London since 2007. Minnesota, the Jets' opponent on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, last played in the UK in 2017, one year before drafting Conklin and he joined the Green & White in 2022, one year after the Jets played Atlanta there.
"It's my first one," Conklin said of the trip to face the Vikings, a team he played with for four seasons (2018-21).
Asked on Thursday what he expects, he said with his normally candid way: "I have no idea. I mean, I've heard kind of different things about it. Some people enjoy it and like it. Some people don't like it as much. But, I mean, it's my first time, so we'll find out."
Now in his fourth season with the Jets, Conklin, 29, is the elder statesman in the team's tight ends room. So far this season he is fourth on the team through four games with 11 receptions (on 18 targets) for 126 yards (11.5 per catch average) and no TDs. He has been particularly effective, especially in the victory over New England, and is keeping his route alive as QB Aaron Rodgers goes off-schedule. Against the Patriots he was the Jets' leading receiver with 5 catches for a career-high 93 yards, including a 22-yard catch-and-run. Last season, Conklin matched his career high in receptions (61) that he collected his last season (2021) in the Twin Cities.
"I've really been trying my best this year to just day by day, game by game, being present, not thinking about the past or the future," he said. "But yeah, if you want to break it up in quarters, I think there's some good things we did in the first quarter. I think there's obviously some things that we're going to look, we look back at, and we didn't do so well in the first quarter. I also think it's the first quarter so it's a lot of opportunity to get better and make those corrections and fix the things that we don't like to happen in that first quarter of the season. But I'm just trying to do my best. And I think our team's trying to do our best to just be present."
Minnesota (4-0) comes into the game on a roll, led by QB Sam Darnold who leads the NFL with 11 TD passes. The Jets (2-2), after winning two straight, then dropping a 1-point decision to Denver last week, will be looking to get back on track against one of the most blitz-happy teams in the NFL. Last week, the Broncos' defense victimized the Jets with 5 sacks of QB Aaron Rodgers.
"It's definitely something the Vikings do," Conklin said. "I mean, they blitz a lot. They give you a lot of different looks, coverage-wise, blitz-wise. I think that's why that's what this week's practice was. We realized that some movement and some blitzing we didn't handle that really well. And copycat league, so we know the Vikings do it anyway. But you know, if we don't fix it this week, it's something teams are going to keep doing. So it's something we've really focused on in practice this week. And I think we're prepared to kind of handle the blitzing and the movement."
So going to play his first game in London, what are Conklin's expectations?
"I mean, I'm just kind of going in and I don't really know what to expect, so I'm just going and try to enjoy the trip."
