The Jets could have running back Breece Hall and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell back in the lineup for Sunday’s game against the Dolphins.
Mitchell has practiced all week after missing four games with a finger injury and head coach Aaron Glenn said he is on track to play this weekend. Mitchell is set to be a full participant in practice on Friday.
Hall returned to practice on Thursday as a limited participant and is set to work again on Friday. Glenn said he will be listed as questionable with the quad injury that has kept him out of the last two games.
Guard Dylan Parham (knee) will also be listed as questionable. Offensive lineman Max Mitchell (concussion), linebacker Kiko Mauigoa (quad), and linebacker Joseph Ossai (ankle) will not play.
On Wednesday, a report emerged regarding significant fines imposed on three head coaches for their interactions with officials. The news that the league dinged Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, Jets coach Aaron Glenn, and Eagles coach Nick Sirianni for $250,000 each lacked details about the behavior that caused it and the specific conditions that would keep the penalties, which reportedly are being held in abeyance, from being enforced.
Two of the coaches spoke to reporters on Thursday. Not much light was shed on the situation in either case.
“I won’t get into my conversations with the league,” Sirianni said when asked whether the fine was for a specific incident or something more general. “I try to keep everything player related, as far as my conversations with players, in-house. Not try, I do. Same with conversations with the league, same with conversations with the referees association. I’ll just keep that at that.”
He was then asked whether his approach to officials has changed in his tenure as a head coach.
“You are in constant growth,” Sirianni said. “I truly believe that I’ve been in constant growth there in maturity in every phase. You’re trying to get better as a coach on a daily basis. I’m always trying to get better as a human being, as a Christian, as a father, as a husband, as a son on a daily basis. I know that things don’t happen overnight, and there are times where you ‘relapse,’ to say, and you have a moment that you want back. But I can truly see growth, and that happens because, again, my faith. That happens, again, because of the people I have around me. I want to continue to grow as a person and as a coach, but that doesn’t mean we’re perfect. We all fall and it’s about how you get back up.”
That still leaves us with nothing regarding what they said or did to trigger the fines. Which creates the impression that it was more of a warning shot by the league aimed at getting all coaches to go easier on the officials. The fact that Sirianni expressly referenced the NFL Referees Association lends credence to the idea that it’s part of a broader effort to elevate the discourse.
Vrabel wasn’t specifically asked about the fine after Thursday night’s 30-24 loss to the Bears. In response to the last question of the press conference, he was asked about one of the calls made during the game.
“I’m not in very good favor with the officiating department,” Vrabel said, “so I probably shouldn’t say anything.”
He walked off after that, leaving no opportunity for a follow-up.
Regardless, the issue cries out for more details. Why were they fined? What did they do? What is the standard of behavior for getting the fines rescinded?
Vrabel is next scheduled to talk to reporters on Monday. Perhaps at that point, we’ll get some answers. Ditto for Glenn, who’ll speak after Sunday’s game against the Dolphins.
For now, the only lesson to other coaches is very broad: “Tread lightly.” And maybe that was the entire goal of the imposition of the fines.
The Jets got wide receiver Adonai Mitchell back on the practice field Wednesday and another significant offensive piece was back on the field Thursday.
Running back Breece Hall took part in his first practice since injuring his quad in Week 4. Hall was listed as a limited participant as the Jets continued preparing for this Sunday’s game against the Dolphins.
Braelon Allen has done solid work in Hall’s place, but the Jets would prefer to have all their offensive weapons on hand as they try for their first divisional win since the 2024 season.
Mitchell (finger) remained a limited participant along with linebacker Will McDonald (toe), guard Dylan Parham (knee), and defensive lineman T’Vondre Sweat (elbow). Linebacker Kiko Mauigoa (quad), offensive lineman Max Mitchell (concussion), running back Kene Nwangwu (knee), and linebacker Joseph Ossai (ankle) did not practice on Thursday.
In September, former NFL quarterback and former Fox broadcaster Mark Sanchez agreed to resolve multiple pending criminal charges with a guilty plea. Since then, nothing else has happened as to the criminal case.
Via Fox 59, Sanchez’s change-of-plea hearing was canceled. It had been set for November 9, after being rescheduled four times.
Per the report, the official docketing system doesn’t explain the move. The entry says only that, “by agreement of the parties, change of plea hearing was vacated at this time.”
When the plea deal was reached, Sanchez’s lawyers requested a sentencing hearing on November 9 or November 16.
It could be as simple as the change-of-plea process being handled on paper, without a hearing. Still, there will need to be a sentencing hearing, at some point.
It’s also possible that the plea deal has fallen apart. Now that Sanchez has settled Perry Tole’s civil, the victim could be less motivated to tell the kind of compelling story that could lead to a conviction. Sanchez could be emboldened to rescind his agreement and fight.
Whatever the reason, it’s strange. Reaching a deal is the hard part. Reducing it to writing and finalizing it is the easy part.
In the legal system, nothing is done until it’s done. And Sanchez’s criminal case currently shows no signs of being done, or of a foreseeable moment in court when it will get done.
The NFL isn’t messing around when it comes to behavior toward game officials. With an asterisk.
Albert Breer of SI.com reports that the NFL has fined Patriots coach Mike Vrabel, Jets coach Aaron Glenn, and Eagles coach Nick Sirianni $250,000 each for conduct toward game officials.
The discipline may be more performative than substantive. Breer explains that “the fines are in abeyance, meaning they’d be on hold, and could be repealed with good behavior.”
It’s not entirely clear where things stand, and what it would take to avoid the fines. Also, the amounts are borderline cartoonish. In 2012, former Patriots coach Bill Belichick was fined only $50,000 for confronting and grabbing the arm of a replacement official. Recently, 49ers owner Jed York was fined a mere $500,000 to go along with a six-game suspension after a prostitution-related arrest.
These fines seem over the top, especially since the specific behavior that prompted the fines has not been identified.
In Week 4, Vrabel was flagged for his comments to an official after a disputed call. “I told him it was a terrible — I’m not going to say effing — call,” Vrabel said after the game. “I’ve said that 87 times since I’ve been a head coach. It was nothing derogatory. You’d have to ask him. I think he was a little sensitive.”
The league was more than a little sensitive. But it’s not as if the $250,000 will be collected. All in all, it feels like an olive branch to the NFL Referees Association, after a pair of suspensions were imposed on officials for interactions with players in Week 5.
