FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — At 7 a.m. sharp on Friday, Dustin Keller took his seat in the Jets’ tight ends’ meeting room and opened his backpack, pulling out a ballpoint pen and a red spiral notebook. On the front, five letters were written in blue ink: TMbok.  They stand for Tom Moore Book of Knowledge, the journal Keller has kept since training camp for his private master class in football, taught by Moore, considered one of the greatest offensive minds in N.F.L. history.  Moore, 73, is a Jets consultant, imported during the off-season to improve the team’s red-zone precision and third-down efficiency, with a focus on tight end, the position that thrived during his 13 seasons directing the Colts’ juggernaut under Peyton Manning. Keller, 27, is the Jets’ fourth-year tight end, an Indiana native who has long admired one former Moore pupil, Indianapolis tight end Dallas Clark.  For Keller, the opportunity to learn from Moore was akin to his chance as a rookie to catch passes from Brett Favre, and he did not want to forget a thing. They met alone for 90 minutes at a time, three nights a week, Keller paying rapt attention to the man he called “my personal coach.” As Moore isolated finer points of the passing game, Keller in neat penmanship jotted down pithy phrases and punchy quotes, basic ideas and specific concepts. His first note? “Protect the Football ALWAYS.” Beneath that entry, every line is filled for two and a half pages.  As Keller sheepishly admits, this is his second notebook, started in late summer after he accidentally left the original at home one morning. He said he intended to combine the entries and categorize them after the season, with more to come now that Moore — who last week accepted the Jets’ standing offer to work from team headquarters instead of his South Carolina home — has restarted their one-on-one tutorials.  “By the time I’m done with it,” Keller said, thumbing through the 70-page book, “none of these will be empty.”  Here are some of the points Moore emphasizes.  EYES OPEN Every so often, the sheer simplicity of Moore’s advice astonishes Keller. Consider this suggestion: “Always get in position to see the quarterback’s eyes.” It sounds simple, obvious, a basic tenet of receiving. “Then you think about it,” Keller said, “and you’re like, ‘Duh, how come it never occurred to me?’ ” That command changed Keller’s perspective. He realized that he must have made it hard for Mark Sanchez, all those times a pass was thrown Keller’s way when one of them never saw the other. “He’s throwing it blind,” Keller said of Sanchez. “He doesn’t always know if you’re there, just where you’re supposed to be.”  Keller takes pride in running crisp routes with sharp cuts, knowing that being a second late or a yard short can sabotage a play, but he does so with greater awareness now, trying to lure linebackers underneath to clear space — and a better line of vision — for him. Even if a defender matches him stride for stride, Keller knows he can still get open if he can make visual contact with Sanchez.  While Keller watched video in training camp, it struck him how expertly (and often) Clark would catch the ball in tight coverage. One factor, naturally, was Manning’s accurate right arm. Another was how well Clark applied Moore’s instruction. “Even now, I’ll run a route and I’ll hear Tom’s voice in my head,” Clark said over the phone from Indianapolis. “The way he teaches football was applicable 20 years ago, just as it will be 20 years from now.”  TOTAL CONCENTRATION The first rule of Tom Moore is that he doesn’t talk about Tom Moore. “It’s not about me,” he said. “It’s about the players.” So he tells Keller about outstanding receivers he once coached, players like John Stallworth, Lynn Swann, Cris Carter and Marvin Harrison. All had exceptional talent. But, Moore tells Keller, all of them also possessed great concentration, the ability to compartmentalize, to block out crowd noise and distractions and defenders. And so in his notebook Keller wrote, “It’s only me and the football.”  To hammer home the point, Moore put Keller through drills that tested his focus. Keller would run routes behind teammates waving their arms in the air. He would catch passes just as someone walloped him with an air bag. He would take special care of the football, bringing it close to his body, his hand wrapped over top. As a result, Keller is dropping fewer passes — only 3 of 45 deemed catchable by ProFootballFocus.com, as opposed to 9 of 61 during the 2010 regular season. “You have to have the mentality that nothing else matters,” Keller said. “If you’re concerned about the ball and the ball only — and not running toward a safety — you have a greater chance of catching it.”
Dustin Keller has regular one-on-one classes with Tom Moore, who coached Dallas Clark in helping develop the Indianapolis Coltsâ explosive offense.