Joe McKnight challenges fan he thought was a reporter to a fight on Twitter: Report

Joe McKnight’s bizarre training camp took a turn for the worse on Monday when the beleaguered Jets running back apparently threatened to fight what he thought was a reporter on Twitter, reports The New York Daily News.

McKnight, who has had legal and health-related issues in the past two weeks, had trouble even getting on the practice field today. He stopped three times on his way to the field, got on bended knee and had to be carted off the field with an oxygen mask.

“If the trainers thought that he was at risk, he would never be out there. Ever,” Rex Ryan said. “For whatever reason he stopped. But no chance would any player be on the field if the trainers or doctors felt that it wasn’t safe for that person to be there. There’s no chance that that would happen.”

Then, McKnight was injured on a 1-on-1 pass-catching drill.

“I saw Joe go down,” Rex Ryan said. “But there was no contact. He just went down and stayed down.”

McKnight suffered a head injury in practice last week – the team won’t say whether or not he suffered a concussion – and appeared wobbly as he slowly left the field.

Things got bizarre when he went into the trainers room when he tweeted the following:

@Joejetlife about time you get released. Good luck. And stay healthy .
— moonwalker (@bleedgreenjetz) August 12, 2013

JOE MCKNIGHT ‏@Joejetlife 3h
Now I'm trying to keep my cool but now it has gone too far with these reporters. Just let y'all know I'm not the one. I know who you are

Now I'm trying to keep my cool but now it has gone too far with these reporters. Just let y'all know I'm not the one. I know who you are
— JOE MCKNIGHT (@Joejetlife) August 12, 2013

JOE MCKNIGHT ‏@Joejetlife 3h
I don't care anymore

JOE MCKNIGHT ‏@Joejetlife 3h
Now I'm getting into that

The third tweet was apparently a reference to a strange media interaction he had on Sunday when he repeatedly said “I’m not getting into that right now” when asked about his recent arrest and health issues.

Then, an apparent fan tweeted this at McKnight: @Joejetlife about time you get released. Good luck. And stay healthy

McKnight responded with this tweet:

@bleedgreenjetz are you outside
— JOE MCKNIGHT (@Joejetlife) August 12, 2013

JOE MCKNIGHT ‏@Joejetlife 3h
@bleedgreenjetz are you outside
 
A team public relations official confirmed that McKnight did indeed tweet from that account. According to the PR rep, McKnight believed that the person antagonizing him on Twitter was a member of the media.

So, the running back responded "are you outside," which was a clear implication that he wanted to fight him outside the training room.

McKnight has underachieved since he came into the league due largely to injuries.

“We’ll see how everything plays out,” Ryan said. “There’s still a long way to go before we’ve made the final decisions. Joe’s led the league in kick returns… He has plenty of talent, but there is a concern about durability.”

 “If a young man’s injured, he’s not going to be able to take advantage of whatever opportunity he has,” Ryan added. “I’m certainly not going to put anyone out on the field if he’s injured.”

Jets show support for Rex Ryan in player poll

If it was up to the New York Jets players, Rex Ryan will still be standing on the team's sidelines next season — and you can put their names to it.

In an informal poll of players by Mark Cannizzaro of The New York Post,  Gang Green stands behind their head coach despite the missing the playoffs for the second season in a row.

In his "on-and-off-the-record" interviews with nearly half the players on the roster, Cannizzaro concluded that they all believe Rex must stay.

He writes:

While there is a moderate undercurrent among this cross-section of offensive players who harbor some resentment about Ryan’s devotion to his defense, believing the offensive side of the ball is sometimes neglected, we could not find a single player who flat-out wants Ryan to be fired.

To the contrary, some players said they respect Ryan more for the way he has kept the locker room from coming unglued the way it did at the end of last season when the Jets were also faced with playoff elimination.

"I feel like he's handled himself appropriately — with humility," said linebacker Bart Scott.  "Guys haven't packed it in.  You would be able to see if guys have packed it in and they haven't.  Nobody has imploded, nobody has turned on each other.  That's a reflection of the respect everyone has for him."

Ryan — who was voted the most over-rated coach in the NFL earlier in the season — has withstood a constant barrage of issues this season.

McKnight: Fans' boos helped push Ryan to bench Sanchez

New York Jets running back Joe McKnight said he believes the lack of fan support for Mark Sanchez could have possibly played a big role in the decision by Rex Ryan to bench his starting quarterback.

And not in the way you would think.  McKnight thinks his teammate got rattled by the din of boos in the stadium and it affected his play on the field.

"I think it did," McKnight said Wednesday. "Any time you're the starting quarterback and you're on the football field and you're trying to call plays and you got the people that are supposed to be rooting for you screaming for the other quarterback, that's kind of frustrating.  That kind of takes you out of the game.  And I think that's kind of made it tough for the coaches to make their decision."

While the chants of "Te-bow, Te-bow" might have hindered Sanchez's performance on the field, it did nothing to bolster Tim Tebow's reputation with the head coach.  On Tuesday, Ryan chose third-string QB Greg McElroy over the choice of the people to start Sunday's game against the San Diego Chargers.

McKnight might have more of a special kinship with Sanchez than the rest of the team.  They played together at USC and McKnight has always had his buddy's back.