Jets tight end Tyler Conklin ready for trip to London

As the Jets prepared to cross the Atlantic Ocean Thursday night to play in London for the first time since 2021, tight end Tyler Conklin said he had two basic concerns: “The time difference and the change of hour.”

NFL teams have played in London since 2007. Minnesota, the Jets’ opponent on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, last played in the United Kingdom in 2017, a year before recruiting Conklin and he joined the Greens and Whites in 2022, one year later. the Jets played there against Atlanta.

“It’s my first,” Conklin said of his trip against the Vikings, a team he played with for four seasons (2018-21).

Asked Thursday what he expected, he responded with his usual frankness: “I have no idea. I mean, I’ve heard different things about it. Some people l ‘enjoy it and love it. Some people don’t like it as much. But, I mean, it’s my first time, so we’ll know.

Conklin, 29, now in his fourth season with the Jets, is the elder statesman in the team’s tight end room. So far this season, he is fourth on the team after four games with 11 receptions (on 18 targets) for 126 yards (11.5 per catch average) and no touchdowns. He was particularly effective, notably in the victory against New England, and maintains his path while quarterback Aaron Rodgers goes off the schedule. Against the Patriots, he was the Jets’ leading receiver with 5 catches for a career-high 93 yards, including a 22-yard catch-and-run. Last season, Conklin tied his career high in receptions (61) which he collected in his final season (2021) in the Twin Cities.

“I really did my best this year, day after day, game after game, being present, not thinking about the past or the future,” he said. “But yeah, if you want to break it down into quarters, I think there were some good things that we did in the first quarter. I think there’s obviously some things that we’re going to look at, we look back on it, and we didn’t. I’m not doing very well in the first quarter I think it’s the first quarter too, so it’s a lot of opportunities to improve and make those corrections. and fixing the things that we don’t like to happen in this first quarter of the season I’m just trying to do my best and I think our team is trying to do our best to just be there.