Rontez Miles is standing on the side of the Jets’ practice fields a few minutes after the team’s final training camp practice when the man with the visor and shoulder-length curly hair walks by carrying a water bottle.
“That’s the man right there that saved my life,” Miles, a Jets safety, says, pointing in the man’s direction.
That man is John Mellody, the Jets’ head trainer. Miles figures he would not be here, fighting for a roster spot, had Mellody not acted quickly last December to diagnose him with compartment syndrome after a freak practice injury.
Miles spent the first 16 weeks of last season on the practice squad, his second year of practice-squad duty.