Vinny Curry happy to be back with Jets after health scare

Vinny Curry was looking forward to being part of the Jets’ defensive line rotation in 2021 before he received the news that would lead to his eventual season-long absence from the gridiron.

Jets doctors discovered Curry, who had signed with the team in free agency, had a rare blood disorder. The diagnosis led to the removal of his spleen. The procedure itself wasn’t going to keep Curry out long-term, but a blood clot developed because Curry misunderstood the duration he was supposed to take blood thinners for. That knocked him out for the year.

Now fully recovered, Curry is back with the Jets for OTAs after re-signing in April.

“I’ve been playing this game since I was 5 or 6 years old,” Curry said Wednesday. “You love the game so much and what it means to you, but in a blink of an eye, this could’ve been taken me away from my babies. It was the most scariest thing. But at the same time, I knew I had to be here for them and my wife and it was like, ‘I’m going to get through this,’ you know?”

Curry stayed around the Jets throughout his absence last season, mentoring New York’s young defensive linemen and lending a helping hand whenever he could. Gamedays were a bit tougher on the 33-year-old, as he longed to be on the field, pitching in as a member of Jeff Ulbrich’s defense.

“That’s the part that really messes with you mentally because it’s like, damn, you know you’re supposed to be out there and you know it’s not your fault,” Curry said. “But at the end of the day, it’s like, damn, I can’t wait to be back out there.”

Curry is now back to being part of a unit that is the clear strength of the Jets’ defense. Carl Lawson is returning from a ruptured Achilles that put him on the sideline along with Curry for the entire 2021 season. Micheal Clemons, Jermaine Johnson and Solomon Thomas are fresh faces via free agency and the draft, while John Franklin-Myers, Sheldon Rankins and Quinnen Williams are back to hold down key positions in the trenches.

“I’m back to normal,” Curry said. “Back to doing backflips.”