Kendall has landed on his feet BY MARK FARINELLA / SUN CHRONICLE STAFF Saturday, October 27, 2007 12:21 AM EDT FOXBORO - Pete Kendall now knows that he was correct to take a hard line with the New York Jets. It landed him in a better situation. Instead of being mired in the muck with the foundering New York Jets, Kendall has solidified the offensive line for the 4-2 Washington Redskins, who come to Gillette Stadium Sunday with hopes of knocking off the 7-0 New England Patriots (4:15 p.m.; Ch. 25, 64). "I couldn't have asked for things to go any better than they have," said the Quincy-born alumnus of Archbishop Williams High School. "I was able to find a place to live within a week of the trade. My family moved down, my kids are enrolled in school. It's been great for me from a personal standpoint, and just the fact that we've been able to win a few games here and play decent football has been good as well." Kendall, 34, originally drafted by Seattle in 1996 out of Boston College, was embroiled in a nasty contract dispute with the Jets during the preseason. Claiming that the Jets were reneging upon an agreement to increase his salary, he fired verbal salvo after verbal salvo at team management and suffered a series of on-field indignities before he was finally traded.The war between Kendall and the Jets began when he boycotted the offseason conditioning programs in the spring, then ripped management publicly for the first time at the June minicamp. Kendall said he was looking for another $1 million on top of his scheduled $1.7 million salary for 2007 and claimed that the Jets reneged on a promise of the pay hike. Kendall also said he had been told by Jets' GM Mike Tannenbaum that the salary boost was "not unreasonable."But the Jets did nothing, and as the war of words increased, Kendall found himself assigned to a rookie dormitory at training camp, then jockeyed around in a series of tryouts at backup positions before a deal was finally worked out with the Redskins. :beer: The Jets received a fifth-round pick in the 2008 draft that could become a fourth-rounder in 2009 if Kendall plays 80 percent of Washington's snaps, which is starting to look like a certainty, barring injury. Kendall said earlier this week that he wasn't necessarily proud of what it took to get him out of the New Jersey Meadowlands."Yeah, it was not how I'll choose to look back on my time there," he said. "Certainly I won't dwell on how it ended. I was a little surprised that the ball got rolling the way that it did, but once it got rolling I think ultimately it was going to end similarly to the way that it did."Moving to another team wasn't exactly what Kendall had in mind at this stage of his career, but as he said, at least he has had the opportunity to spend 12 years in the NFL and still be productive with his fourth team."I'm fine with how it's played out," he said. "When I started my career, I hoped to finish it in Seattle. I think every player, for the most part, starts their career with the idea or the hope that they're able to stay in one place for however long they're able to play, but in this day and age it's not that common for a player to play 12 years with one team."Some guys do," he said. "Usually they're the exceptional guys. I'm more the journeyman-type at this point, so it doesn't surprise me at all that I've had to move around a little bit. I'm just going to keep playing as long as I can. If that means another stop, then so be it." Right now, Kendall has merged in nicely with an offensive line that has more veteran talent in place than the Jets had last year."It's very much different than the position I was in last year," he said. "Casey Rabach, our center, is a guy who has been in this system now I think it's his third year in the system. I believe it's his seventh or eighth year in the league. He's been through it all. He's a proven veteran and Chris Samuels, our left tackle, Chris is a Pro Bowl player. He's been to two or three Pro Bowls and, again, I believe this is his eighth year so they've seen a lot of the things that Nick (Mangold) and D'Brickashaw (Ferguson) hadn't seen, just by the virtue of the fact that they were rookies last year."My job is basically just to go in and play as well as I can," he added. "I don't really have to serve any other role."Another thing Kendall offers, at least this week, is a level of familiarity with the Patriots' defense that no one else in Washington has. The Redskins haven't played the Patriots in a regular-season game since 2003 (a 20-17 Washington victory at FedEx Field in a game in which the Patriots were missing 11 starters through injury), but Kendall's knowledge comes from having been a Jet for the past three seasons."They're a difficult group to even prepare for because so many of their guys are so versatile," Kendall said of the Patriots' defense. "They can give you so many different looks up front and they can give you the same looks with different personnel, so just from an X's and O's standpoint you're not really sure what you're going to get. "Of course," he added, "their players are really good players as well, so when you couple good scheme with intelligent players who are interchangeable and are also very good at what they do, I think you see the results. They make it hard on offenses."There's one bottom line for the Washington offense to follow Sunday, Kendall said." You can't make mistakes," he said. "You hate to say you have to go play perfect, but you certainly have to limit your mistakes. You have to play smart and you have to take advantage of any opportunities that they may give you."Kendall also admitted it's pleasant to be playing for a team that believes it can win football games - although he does feel some empathy for his former brothers-in-arms. "I just enjoy being 4-2 at this point," he said. "The fact that the Jets are 1-6 doesn't do anything for me. I still feel close to a lot of guys in that locker room and I wish them well every week."
Of course if Washington get eliminated early on he will find himself on the bench to make sure it's a 5th rounder. That's what teams do, just look at Losman's contract in Buffalo.
Wow......all those great things - and throw in that they're winning. That should be the first thing you're happy about. Good riddens ya old immature bum...
Let me see , we get a 4th rounder for an ageing LG who was our best LG on the team , which also added to a miserable season , culminating in Chad finally being benched. Is this season starting to pick up a bit?
I cant complain about losing Kendall. He became a cry baby. "Boo hoo. I might have to be the backup center and thats not my natural position". Nice team work jerk. Dont let the door hit ya on the way out.
Kendall was always going to be worth more on a good Redskins line than a bad Jets line. That was never a matter of controversy. When the line is as bad as the Jets line is this year you don't get much mileage out of the Dave Szott, Pete Kendall type stopgaps. The real problem is the Jets made no effort to get somebody better than Adrien Clarke in here and Clarke is a really bad left guard.
I think what the Jets did to Kendall was BS. He wanted a 1 million dollar raise, we had the money under the cap, and we needed him for at least another year. I was ok with us tossing him because he didn't do us any good and we wanted to make a stand. To throw him in the Rookie dorm was BS, to trade him and then give Brandon Moore a 1 million dollar raise, for his "amazing" play is BS, we wanted Kendall gone and it hurt us when we stayed with our decent backups, who shouldn't ever have to start an NFL game. While at least we get something out of it, it seems we wont see anything till 2009 which is not exactly helping us this year or in the immediate future.
Honestly, as bad as the Kendall situation was, I really doubt that is the difference between the Jets being 1-7 and 7-1. Looking at this long term, IF we do get a 4th round pick out of this, then this trade was a steal. The 4th round has always been good to us, and we can get a player at that spot who not only will be a bigger contributor to the Jets, but also will be around a LOT longer. Short term this was tough to bear but long term this should be an excellent move.
Actually, I agree. Kendall might have helped us win maybe one more game. He is clearly not "the future" at the LG position so we should feel lucky that they managed to get anything for him as opposed to just waiving him.
While we're obviously revisiting the old Kendall thing again, let's not forget the whole story with Kendall and how it developed, because it's important to keep the timeline in perspective. When it started, it was about the $1 Million. This should have been the end of it and Tannenbaum should have found a way to compromise. At no time do I think Tannenbaum ever dreamed Kendall would escalate this way beyond proportion, which is what he did. As it progressed, Kendall took to airing his every discussion with the press at every opportunity, including some discussions with Eric Mangini whcih were supposedly man-to-man and intended to be discreet conversations. Yet Kendall chose to escalate the thing through the roof, causing what ultimately led to a break-down in communications and an almost self-destructive, I-dare-you-to-trade me, full court press. This is the thing that led to his trade, not the initial $1 Million. It became a standing ground for Mangini/Tannenbaum in the face of a rogue player turned renegade who wanted to make an example of management and a lesson to all other players on how to manipulate management through the press. Of course, this cannot stand, ever. We did what we had to do with him, which is ship his ass out. To have given in at that point would have opened up a floodgate of all kinds of demands by players wanting to use Kendall's tactical examples of how to use the public media to get anything you want. I'll take a 4th or 5th, it doesn't matter, whichever comes first.
we need to start getting some more draft picks. we need some guys who can play this game . . . cheers ~ ~ ~
That begs the question, would the Jets O line have been this bad if we still had Kendall? I think the answer to that question has to be no. Kendall could have at least continued his mentoring of our young players and he is better than anyone we have on our team playing that position..
Lets put this in perspective. Kendall aired his dirty laundry in the media. It was not like he was a solid citizen and just spouted off............. He ranted and raved to the media which did everything short of sticking a mike in his ass to get a constant story, he ratted Mangini out to the NFL for tough practices, he aired private conversations as well. This is not the first time this 290 pound whiny bitch did this. He was run out of Seattle and of all places Arizona, which was in worse shape at O-line and still jettisoned this DB's ass. Not only that, he was not that good. Albeit he was better than Clarke. Shit my beloved pekingese would be a better LG than that hunk of crap. Anyway to get a 4th for PK's sorry ass is great. Thank god there are dupes like Washington in this league. Anyway Kendall has been an ahole everywhere he goes. For some strange reason he wears out his welcome every few years. A 4th for him is highway robbery. Now if we can get the Deadskins to take Vilma and Chad off our hands for their #1's in 08 and 09 and a #2 we are in business and they just might be that stupid.
