Columnist Dean Juipe: Navy, Jets keep Viger guessing

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.

As a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Dave Viger is very good at taking orders. It's just that he'd like a little input on the latest one he received from the New York Jets.

Viger, a Las Vegas resident for three years and a former Navy defensive lineman who played in the Hula Bowl and the Blue-Gray game following his senior season, is on the periphery of the Jets' camp in Hempstead, N.Y. He would prefer to be in camp and battling for a roster spot with the AFC contenders, but the Jets have him on the "military reserve" list -- even though his military commitment right now is limited to working at a Navy recruiting center in New York.

"He's a little bit upset," Viger's father, David Sr., said of his son's forced exile. "I told him he should write a letter to (Jets coach) Bill Parcells and thank him, yet remind him that what they're doing is cruel and unfair.

"He said he was going to do it."

The Jets, who evened their exhibition record at 1-1 with a 10-9 victory Friday over the Philadelphia Eagles, are trying to stash Viger and keep him under wraps either until they really need him or until next year. By being on military reserve, Viger can neither practice with the team -- which has changed from four down linemen to three on defense -- nor sign with another team.

The latter option has some appeal as Miami, Jacksonville and the New York Giants, to name three, are other teams having expressed an interest in the 6-foot-5, 298-pound defensive lineman who doubles as a long snapper.

"He's anxious and ready and he has built himself into a beast, a monster," Viger Sr. said. "He's solid muscle and has gone from boy to man. The coaches went crazy when they saw him."

Viger went undrafted out of the Academy, in part because of a mandatory post-graduate commitment. Last season the Navy appeared as if it would cooperate and let him try to earn a spot on the Jets' roster, but it unexpectedly switched gears and has only halfheartedly cooperated with him this year.

"The Navy stinks in that regard," Viger Sr. said. "Dave has been an exemplary serviceman and should be a poster boy for the Navy and what it can do for a young person's career. But the Navy pulled the plug on him last year and at one point they were going to arrest him on the Jets' training field for being AWOL. This year they assigned him to a propulsion school when he could have been in the Jets' mini-camps, and the lousy part about that is that they're training him for something he'll never be able to serve on.

"Because of his size, he can't fit through the ship's hatches."

If Viger were not on military reserve, he would be in camp with the Jets or some other team and at least be in line for a spot on the team's practice squad, which pays $100,000. Instead, he's doing nothing in terms of organized football and at 24 years old there are fleeting thoughts that time is passing.

"He'll be on pins and needles for the next couple of weeks, or until this thing works itself out," Viger Sr. said. "The poor kid. He's in limbo, but what he's seeing is that it's a dog-eat-dog world."

This time it's the Jets selfishly guarding his path, although, technically, they're within their rights as Viger has yet to complete his post-graduate duties.

As it is, he is both anchored and away.

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