The teams are bad and now players are tossing love letters at each other.
This isn’t your father’s Jets-Patriots rivalry.
Patriots rookie running back Damien Harris talked about Jets starter Frank Gore in reverential terms, raving about the veteran and expressing hope he can meet him after the Monday night contest.
“I don’t even know if my words will do it justice, but just the ultimate respect,” Harris told reporters. “The ultimate — just, I mean, I can’t even express. Just being able to witness something like that and to be able to go up against something like that — all-time great, one of the all-time leading rushers in this game. One of the toughest and most competitive guys to ever play this position. So just seeing what he’s done over the course of his career, it’s — I mean, it’s ridiculous. And you can’t even really put together the right words that show enough respect to what he has done for this game.”
The 37-year-old Gore is third all-time in rushing yards with 15,687, trailing only Walter Payton and Emmitt Smith. He has led his team in rushing in his first 14 seasons in the league, before seeing that streak broken last year. It looks like he will lead the Jets in rushing this year — he has team-highs of 340 yards and 96 carries — after Le’Veon Bell was traded to the Chiefs.
“He’s one of the guys that have paved the way for younger guys like myself to play this game, to play this great position,” said Harris, who was eight years old when Gore was drafted in 2005. “So being able to see what he’s done over the course of his career and what he’s still doing to this day, tremendous amount of respect.
“So I’m really looking forward to seeing that on Monday. Hopefully, I’ll get an opportunity to just tell him, ‘You are one of the all-time greats, and what you’ve done for this game, for myself, for guys that would have never even known how to play this position without guys like you, it’s truly an honor to share the same field.’”
