Jets hoping taxi driver-turned-pads guru keeps Sam Darnold safe

The MVP for the Jets this Sunday might not make a tackle or a catch. It just might be a 64-year-old former taxi driver from East Str🦂oudsburg, Pa.

Ted Monica spent several weeks over the past month designing the protective gear quarterback Sam Darnold will be wearing underneath his jersey this week. As the co-founder and lead designer for XTech, Monica is the Picasso of pads. He has spent more than 30 years designing and perfecting should🤪er pads.

When Darnold wa⛄s diagnosed with mononucleosis in Septe♔mber, the Jets called Monica to design padding to protect Darnold for his return to the field.

“As soon as they called me, I had an ꦯidea in mind,” Monica said last week. 𓂃“I just fine tuned it and it worked.”

Monica visited with Darnold three times in recent weeks to measure the quarterback. The XTech warehouse is loca🐬ted in an industrial park about 10 minutes away from the Jets’ training center. Monica set out to build an enhanced rib protector that would attach to Darnold’s shoulder pads.

What Monica came up with is a pad that goes completely around Darnold’s midsection. Typicalꩵly, a rib protector does nꦜot go across the stomach. Darnold’s has thicker padding, more plastic, is taller and has reinforcements to ensure that it cannot be pulled away from his body.

“He’s totally encased in plastic,” Monica said.

Mononucleosis causes the spleen and other organs to enlarge, which could lead to them rupturing, and that could lead to death. Though Darnold has now been medically cleared💜, he needs to make sure he protects the spleen, which is on your left side near your ribs.

Darnold loved what Monica came up with.

“I can’t say enough good things about them and how they’ve helped me in the pr💟ocess in getting back and staying healthy,” Darnold told The Post about XTech. “They have been nothing but a🗹mazing.”

Monica said the first priority was obviously to protect Darnold’s spleen. But he also h♛ad to make the pads light enough that Darnold would not be restricted in his movements. The padding adds about 2 ½ pounds to Darnold’s normal gear. Darnold has practiced with the padding on for the past two weeks and said he plans on wearing it for the rest of the season.

“It hasn’t been restrictive at all, and the equipment staff has done a really good job with that, 🍒making sure that I can still play the way that I usually play with all the padding on,” Darnold said.

Darnold first 🍌formed a relationship with XTech in the lead-up to the 2018 draft. Co-founder Bob Broderick met wi﷽th Darnold and sold the young quarterback on the pads. Darnold said he values the relationship with the company. An autographed Darnold jersey hangs in their warehouse.

“It’s huge, especially right now,” he said. “They are such good pads. They’re so light but also so pꦕrotective at the same time. As a player, you’re always looking to be faster, but also staying safe.”

Monica and Broderick started XTech seven years ago. They are now the No. 1ꦑ provider of shoulder pads t♊o NFL players. They also work with more than 500 college teams and more than 500 high school teams.

Asked what the difference is in his pads, Monica proudly says “the design.” Monica has studied an⛦atomy and is able to bri﷽ng some art to the science of pads.

“ꦆHe takes what the scientists in the laboratory and he’s able to be practical about it in sports and marry the two,” Broderic🌺k said.

On Sunday, the Jets will be counting on Monica’s design to protect their 22-year-old quarterback. Monica says he prefers to watch baseball over football, but will he tune in this Sunday to𝔉 see how his pads do oꦬn Darnold?

“Probably,” he says with a smi🎀le, “when I’m done cutting my lawn.”