The Jets’ locker room was a bleak and mostly silent place Friday afternoon, and it had absolutely nothing to do with their 3-8 record.
Joe McKnight hadn’t worn a Jets uniform since the preseason three years ago, long enough — especially with this woebegone franchise — for much of the current roster to never have played with him.
But it wasn’t just the dozen or so players still around from McKnight’s tenure who were taking his tragic and senseless shooting death in a Louisiana road-rage incident Thursday hard.
Even players too young to have known the former running back and kick returner could sense McKnight’s passing had cast a pall over the entire practice facility.
Even amid the Jets’ woeful season, the locker room and halls at Woody Johnson’s gleaming Florham Park complex usually have been a source of smiles and friendliness.
Good times or bad, the Jets’ camp never will be confused with a visit to Bill Belichick’s Patriots, where you are required to check in at “Security Command” and made to wonder if this is what a trip to CIA headquarters must be like. But not Friday. It was as quiet as a funeral in the Jets’ locker room, because that is what several of them no doubt will be having to attend — so needlessly, so pointlessly — in New Orleans in the coming days.
“He was definitely one of the most popular guys in the locker room,” said safety Antonio Allen, who played alongside McKnight in 2012 and the 2013 preseason. “Everybody knew him and everybody liked him. My heart goes out to his family. I can’t say much other than it’s heartbreaking. He was so young.”
Several of McKnight’s former Jets teammates were too shaken up to speak with the media Friday afternoon, releasing statements through the team’s public relations department instead.
One of them was cornerback Darrelle Revis, who recalled McKnight’s less-than-smooth arrival as a fourth-round pick out of USC in 2010 — McKnight was so out of shape he vomited on the field after his first practice and later admitted to an all-McDonald’s diet — and eventual emergence as an ace returner.
“He came in his rookie year and it was a little rocky for him trying to learn the system,” Revis said in a statement. “And then his second year he took off as an explosive kick returner and he’s won us numerous games. It was awesome to see him excel not only as a teammate but as a friend.
“It’s hard to come to grips with the reality that he is no longer with us.”
Center Nick Mangold, like Revis another veteran who played alongside McKnight all of his three-plus seasons with the Jets, appeared stunned.
“It’s a tragedy,” Mangold said. “Joe was a great guy. It’s very disappointing. I feel sad for him, his family, the guys that played with him. It’s tough.”
The Jets will have a moment of silence for McKnight before Monday night’s game against the Colts.
There was also a streak of anger running through the locker room after reports that McKnight’s confessed killer, a 54-year-old white man named Ronald Gasser, had been quickly released without charges while the Jefferson Parish (La.) Sheriff’s Office continued its investigation.
Police later disputed reported details of the killing and indicated Gasser had been released initially because of the state’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law.
Allen, who had tears in his eyes, spoke before the police news conference. But as a Florida native who went to South Carolina, Allen is familiar with the “Stand Your Ground” law and had an inkling that’s what was behind Gasser’s quick release — and Allen wasn’t happy about it.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do in this society with all these gray areas in the laws and this [“Stand Your Ground”] law, in particular,” Allen said. “We’ve got to fix it.”
Allen’s voice trailed off, as if he realized fixing that law was too late to save his friend’s life over something apparently so trivial.
“He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now he’s gone,” Allen said. “What a stupid tragedy.”