Jets restricted free agent quarterback Kellen Clemens hasn’t signed his tender and isn’t too excited about returning for a fifth year in New York because, he says, he’d like to play for a team that will give him a chance to start -- and the Jets are not that team.
“There’s no future for me here starting, that’s clear,” Clemens told Jane McManus of ESPNNewYork.com. “There’s a future for one guy here to star and play and that’s Mark [Sanchez], and that’s why they drafted him. And he’s a very talented quarterback. So I’m not at the point where I’m willing to give up my dream of having a chance to play and start.”
In 2009 Clemens started one game, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, when Sanchez was injured. He didn’t do much (completing 12 of 23 passes for 111 yards), but the coaching staff didn’t ask him to do much as the Jets’ defense and running game led them to an easy 26-3 win.
Clemens hopes to go to a team whose coaching staff will ask him to do more than just back up the franchise quarterback, but he knows he doesn’t have a lot of leverage and will almost certainly not sign with a new team before the April 15 deadline.
“The only thing that I can control is whether I sign that tender today or a week from today,” Clemens said.
