The Jets continued to prepare for their game in Denver this Sunday in Denver without Elijah Moore.
The second-year receiver, who requested a trade on Thursday, won’t play Sunday, but head coach Robert Saleh insisted Moore won’t be traded before the Nov. 1 deadline and will be back with the team on Monday.
“I’m just trying to give him his space with what he’s going through. He probably has a bunch of people hitting him up right now,” wide receiver Corey Davis told The Post at practice Friday. “I’ll just encourage him, letting him know I’m praying for him. It’s deeper than football. More as a person, I’m worried about him. I’ll be asking ‘How are you doing mentally?’ I get it.
“I don’t want to speak too much on it, but it’s kind of a tough situation. Being in the position we’re at as a team, and his predicament, you never want to seem like you’re putting yourself above the team. But he also wants to help, and you can’t really blame him for that.”
Of course, it’s one thing to express a desire to contribute, and another to inform the organization you’d prefer to be elsewhere, isn’t it?
“Exactly. That part I don’t really know too much about or all the details, but [Moore] is a huge piece of this offense and a huge part of this team and we definitely need him,” Davis added. “I’ve said it before, we have a lot of people who are playmakers on this offense.
“And one week it can be this guy, and the next week it can be that guy. The past few weeks, we’ve been pretty run-heavy and haven’t really thrown the ball as much. But he is a huge piece to this team, man, and we definitely need him.”
Veteran linebacker Kwon Alexander added that he is concentrating on playing the Broncos, as the Jets have the opportunity to win their fourth in a row and improve to 5-2.
“That’s between [Moore] and the head coach. That’s his personal business, and I stay focused on what’s at hand, and that’s the game on Sunday,” Alexander said. “But we’re all gonna reach out to him, because that’s our guy and we want him here. We’ll reach out and make sure his mind and mental state are all right. We got him close to our hearts, for sure, but we gotta get ready for this game.
“We gotta block out all the noise and just go out there and be us and leave the outside noise outside and get to work.”
To that end, Saleh doesn’t believe Moore’s absence will have an adverse effect on his teammates.
“I think our locker room’s fine. It’s a rock-solid group,” Saleh said. “We all deal with distractions. But I think what’s cool about our locker room is they all recognize that we’re 4-2 and they understand the formula with which we’ve been doing it and they understand that every week it’s been somebody different.
“Obviously it’s a distraction, because you’re gonna know about it, but I don’t think it’s a distraction that’s taken away from anything, which is preparing for the Denver Broncos.”