Lowery wasn’t able to make it through yesterday’s practice, sitting out an extended portion with an undisclosed injury. Eric Mangini said it was a pre-existing injury and seemed to go with whatever popped into his head when asked what was wrong with Lowery.
“I’ll go with leg,” Mangini said. “He’s got a couple of legs.”
owery’s legs – and hands – were on display in Cleveland. He was known as a ball hawk in college, with 13 interceptions in two seasons, and Lowery’s fourth-quarter pick shed light on why the Jets weren’t about to let him slide past the 114th selection.
“I thought the play in the Cleveland game was really a good look at what we saw in college, where he got into the end zone,” Mangini said. “He knows when a receiver enters the end zone, now you don’t want to be even with the receiver. You want to slide underneath him because you have the sideline and you have the back of the end zone as your help. And that was a lot of the stuff that we saw in college – the instincts.”
They also saw something other observers didn’t at the scouting combine: explosiveness. Lowery’s time in the 40-yard dash was 4.62 seconds, which might have made more than a few general managers look the other way. But some people just run better in pads and cleats than spandex and sneakers.
“I feel like I’ve got speed,” Lowery said. “It’s one thing to line up in stance and there’s no one chasing you, there’s no one around. I’m not a track guy. I play football. And when you put the pads on and there’s competition … that’s when you really find out what guys can do.”