Briggs is the primary offender on James Cooks’ long TD run against the Bills. Rushing up the field like he’s going to make a game winning sack and giving up his entire rush lane. All things considered, the rush defense hasn’t been that bad if you’re allowed to remove the long gains. But we can’t really do that lol. The Cowboys had 4 offensive linemen out. The Buccaneers had both starting tackles out and in order to compensate they moved their center to tackle so essentially playing with 3 backups. I’m not really celebrating any defensive linemen successes this year especially considering the pass rush has disappeared.
Agreed…last two games against backup OL should have been feast days for our DL and these backup OL handled our DL just fucking fine…it’s pathetic. I don’t know what happened to McD but he’s been invisible for the last 2 or 3 games now…I get there is nothing on the other side of him (Clemons is terrible) but a bonafide Edge rusher should be able to get some regardless, and he’s not getting it done. Our DL flat out sucks. There is A LOT wrong with our Defense but I think it does always start up front…if you can’t disrupt the QB there is no secondary in the league that will hold up. Yes it’s a virtuous cycle and sometimes good coverage helps the DL with another second to get to the QB, but more often it’s the other way around…a good DL will help the secondary. We don’t have a good DL. And it’s impacting the entire D. This coaching staff is not helping though…whatever schemes they are running are not elevating the team…
That’s what McDonald was last year too. He’s a nice situation speed rusher in the mold of Yannick Ngakoue, Shaq Barrett, Leonard Floyd, etc. He will probably bounce around the league on 1-2 year deals worth $10-15 million like all those guys do because he’s streaky and you want to avoid having him in there on running downs if you can help it.
Lack of talent - IMO there a no more than a couple of players on this team that would make a good team's roster. mind they haven't really invested in the DL like they used to - I still recall that run of drafts in the early to mid 2010s where they used first round draft pics for 4 out of 5 years in a row on defensive line players (Wilkerson, Coples, Richardson & Williams).
Fair enough, but still, Kinlaw and Thomas were nothing to celebrate either. The point is that the defensive roster is basically like last years, which did a lot better under Ulbrich, and WAY better under Saleh and Ulbrich together. I bet no one here predicted that with this roster and AG and Wilks as coaches we would be #31 with over 30 point allowed. So I don't want to move the goal posts now. The defense grossly underperformed the expectations from this roster. I am not so sure the solution is to majorly change this roster. I believe coaching has A LOT to do with the issues, more so than the roster, much more.
Why did we get gashed on the ground yesterday? Were we just playing soft because we were scared of the receivers? The run defense should’ve been better with Quincy returning, no?
Yes it should have. Here's where I'm at, now that we have half a season of disgusting defensive performances to view: I'm not sure what to make of all this ineptitude... TACKLING!! (Or lack thereof really) Are these guys really practicing tackling Practicing tackling angles? On and on... I don't think they are. Let's be frank, this is professional football. Not a one of these guys should need to be taught HOW to tackle. That is taught, on a daily practice basis, from Pop Warner all the way through College. NONE of these guys should need to be taught HOW to tackle. Yes, they "may" be tackling in practice ala the report they were supposedly having a harder training camp than usual but they weren't being taught to tackle, they were just tackling where most teams do not to end a play. GAP Responsibility Are these guys being taught GAP responsibility These guys also aren't learning some new magical set of gaps to be responsible for either. If you are LB'er you have the same gaps they've had since Pop Warner. Safeties, Corners...everything is the SAME! This is defense we're talking about here, not rocket science. A defender's responsibility does NOT change from Pop Warner all the way through to the Hall of Fame. Find the ball and do your best to stop it and/or take it away. It's really very simple. 3/4 or 4/3 or Cover 2 or....or.... The responsibilities change with each base defense but those responsibilities are always there. Over pursuing is a non-issue if you MAINTAIN GAP RESPONSIBLITY or INTEGRITY!!! Whatever choice of words you want to use they all mean the same. Folks, these are the components that they SHOULD NOT need to practice. Seriously? If you are teaching a professional football player HOW to tackle then I think it's time to re-evaluate the scouting dept. In season practices are about nuance! Scouting, or watching "film," on your opponent! Identifying their tendencies so that you can adjust to their specific nuances. Adjusting the scheme to better prepare a defense for the incoming offense! You want to know what doesn't change with each adjustment? Tackling.....GAP responsibility... Penalties Let's call a spade a spade. Penalties are all about personal responsibility, or the lack thereof, when it comes to each individual. ESPECIALLY the egregious 15 yard variety. Again, these are PROFESSIONALS! They all know what NOT to do. Full stop. Summation I actually sat and thought about it a while and came to a similar conclusion when thinking about these different items we all get so angry about. We all keep harping on coaching when it comes to these handful of FUNDAMENTAL items of football. However, should we be? We can ride Glenn and Wilks about whether the scheme is sound for the personnel or whether the players know the scheme. We can ride them all day long about the in-game decisions made or lack thereof. I've decided what I CANNOT do is get on them about these fundamentals. Those THREE things, in my mind, should be BURNED into their DNA long before they step on a professional football field. Period. THOSE THREE THINGS must be identified BEFORE they are ever drafted or signed as a FA/RFA. A player, who is a tackling machine, does not forget how to tackle from Pop Warner to High School and from High School to College and so on. Sauce Gardner wasn't a tackling machine at ANY level before he got to the Jets so why in the hell do we ride him about it? If he wasn't a tackler before he won't be now. Just an example. There are so many things wrong with this team, as a whole, that go beyond coaching right now. It's one of the reasons WHY this team keeps toiling in the shit. Can someone, with a lot deeper knowledge of this team, tell me what our scouting dept. looks like? Not the head. Who gives a shit about the head. I want to know about the scouts? Do we have the same people year after year in total? Are we bringing in "stupid" players? Incompetent players? There are enough threads about how bad AG coaches when it comes to scheme and decision making I thought it prudent to bring this specific thread back to the defense and the players playing IN said defense. Let's face it, if we even got MARGINAL play from our defense, yesterday would have looked a LOT better. Hey, love the win, but I'd rather look competent in our winning vs. the offense, which isn't built to do what it did yesterday, having to do their best version of the "Greatest show on Turf" to compete with a team they should have obliterated. I just think, with as bad as this team is as a whole, it might be time to start focusing our energy in the correct spots. AG, Wilks & Engstrand are going to get my ire for the scheme, lack of intelligent play calling, poor clock management and stupid decisions. AG can bench and cut but they don't NEED to be taught how to NOT commit penalties. Why? Because they already KNOW! I think it's time to start calling the players out, specifically, for the bullshit tackling, lack of discipline, ghastly penalties and overall lack of PROFESSIONAL PREPARATION that is their responsibility for being paid RIDICULOUS amounts of money to play a damn kid's game.
Glenn should not have to teach them how to tackle. This is the NFL, you need to be a professional that knows the fundamentals before you arrive at the facility. the kid we got from the Titans is a great example: Brownlee. He comes in, suddenly he is the best tackler on the team. Aaron Glenn did not teach him that, Brownlee tackles because it is his job to tackle. Glenn and Wilks' job is to recognize his skills and put him on the field where it can be utilized (like 4th and 9 in the slot with the game on the line against Cincy).. Spoiler alert - it worked
I think the Jets tend to draft dumb players. In recent history especially, the players the Jets have drafted HAVE NOT gone on to be successful elsewhere-- they've generally gone elsewhere and sucked there too.
I have really come to that conclusion as well. Let me preface that when I say "dumb" I mean "Football Dumb." I do not know these men and would never imply they are stupid people. HOWEVER, I have seen them PLAY and there are more than a few "Football DUMB" players on the NY Jets. How do I know? Wellll...... The SAME people are committing the same, or similar, penalties game in and out. It's the SAME people who can't seem to remember HOW to tackle, if they knew in the first place. It's the SAME people who over pursue because they don't give a shit about their gap responsibility! It's the SAME people who receive a punt on the 2yd. line and run it out and on and on and on and on and on... When the NY Jets Scouting Dept. is hunting players who in the hell are they hunting? This basically goes to finding FOOTBALL PLAYERS vs. workout warriors/shiny new objects! I get this disgusting sinking feeling that if "we" were to look at the Jets scouting dept., top to bottom, I'd be willing to bet you there are people (scouts) who've been with this team since the Leon Hess days. I would bet $ on it. The same tired people hunting the same useless types of players. I can't remember when but I DO remember Ozzie Newsome once saying he PERSONALLY vetted each and every one of the players sent to him by the scouting dept. Personally. He said, "if my name is going to be on this pick then I want to know everything about this player." Wise words. Successful GM's, like Ozzie was, were knee deep in every facet. Being a HoF player, he, obviously, had a unique understanding. However, we all know it doesn't take a former player to be able to SEE a good FOOTBALL player. Anyone with two eyeballs and a modicum of rational common sense KNEW Anthony Richardson was going to tank on the Colts. Yet another in a long line of "Combine Warriors" drafted because some stooge thought they could "make" a QB out of him because he could jump out the building. What part of a 12 - 14 college record said, "this is going to be a GREAT NFL QB?" NFL QB's, at least the really good ones, are almost nearly undefeated throughout their ENTIRE college career. The Jets had their own combine warrior experience, as I'm sure we ALL remember Vernon Gholston. It's another reason why I like the all star games in college. Takes these kids that run over all the other kids and gives them a taste of what it's like to play with similar/equal talent, speed and size. To be honest, I find it LAUGHABLE when I hear some of these players say they aren't going to play in those games or workout at the combine. Look here, prima donna. A team is going to GIVE you MILLIONS of dollars to WORK for them, at the very least you can do is show up and interview. Yeah, injuries are a part of the game but, let me ask this. How many of these kids get injured, each year, at the all star game or workout at the combine etc. vs. teams drafting absolute TRASH as players. I'll tell you, as Jets fans, we sure as hell know the answer to THAT little nugget of a question. Zach Wilson is the absolutely perfect example. All the physical gifts in the world but that kid was not nor ever was a FOOTBALL player. If you had to go up and down the current Jets roster, who are football players? I know Breece Hall is one. The one dude half this board wants to trade is one of the FEW football players on this squad. Trade him, why? So we can go and draft non-football players? I'm telling you, I'd LOVE to know just how long most of the Scouts of the NY Jets have been employed by this team. And I mean the drive all over the country guys. Not the stooge sitting in Jersey. Just sayin'
Some teams are better tacklers than others though. Is this strictly scouting and talent evaluation? I don’t really know the answer. Teams aren’t exactly allowed to push their guys during the season or even in camp with the new resort style rules in the CBA. The better “tackling” defenses usually play inspired and have 11 guys at the football. The shittier ones have their guys jogging around on the backside. Quincy just overruns every single fucking play searching for the biggest hit in league history. He ends up with a nice TFL here and there like he did in this game but gives up tons of cut back lanes because he doesn’t play assignment football.
I’ll admit I didn’t expect us to have as awful a D as we’ve had being ranked 31st, but yes I absolutely expected we’d have a bottom half of the league defense. Aaron Glenn has never fielded a great defense before, that certainly wouldn’t suddenly change. Steve Wilks doesn’t inspire any kind of confidence either. We need an offense that is a consistent threat to put 30+ points on the board.
I don’t think we have the coaches to switch to a 3-4. Glenn was never known as a very inventive DC, nor Wilks. Regardless, we don’t have the players either.
Stats from the start of the season - Teams with the most missed tackles: - Bengals 81 - Steelers 60 - Jets 57 So, the third worst team (how about those Bengals though!) Last year we ended up the 4th worst team in terms of missed tackles so this doesn't seem to be a new problem. What is really weird is last year the Steelers had the fewest missed tackles of any team (they only missed 69 the whole of the 2024 season) so not sure what is going on there this year or who they lost (or gained)?
The Steelers traded away Minkah Fitzpatrick who combined for almost 100 tackles last season. Thanks for the figures
I absolutely think it's the players. Can't speak for every team but I watch, religiously, the 49'ers and the Jets. Both have some pretty bad tackling at times but what you don't see with San Francisco is the over pursuit that happens with the Jets. If the Jets simply maintained GAP integrity they would miss fewer tackles by sheer virtue of getting "in the way of" the ball carrier because they are in the correct spot. I use this comparison because, with Saleh back in San Francisco, I can make some equal comparisons as far as scheme goes. I'm certain Saleh is teaching the same defensive techniques in San Fran that he did with the Jets, however, this missed tackle problem has plagued the Jets for a number of years now. Even when they were considered "good." Over pursuit comes from one of two things: Players who don't know the scheme and aren't sure of their responsibilities Players who do not have the base talent and must "over compensate" to make plays that should be routine for a normal talent player. Slower players, for example, will over compensate or over pursue to make up for their inability to maintain coverage At this point in the season, if the Jets players do not know their responsibilities then that's on the player. They are paid to play football which means knowing the damn scheme IS their job. To not know their GAP and responsibilities is gross employment negligence. Couple that with players who appear to not be of the highest "football IQ" and you have a recipe for a defense that can't get off the field on 3rd down. That inability to get off the field, usually, can be contributed to penalties or massive chunk plays. Both of which seem to plague the Jets on a very consistent basis. It's pretty clear that JD wasn't the best at finding players with a high football IQ. I'm HOPING Moog does better. This CAN be turned around in a year or two if we can solve that elusive QB question and replace a number of these super low football IQ players with much higher ones. To me, that is the difference. There's simply no way I can be convinced that THIS many coaches over THIS much time can be THIS consistently shitty. It HAS to be either a combination of the coaching and shitty football IQ players or more towards the shitty football player. Hence why I asked an earlier question of those who know more than I. WHO is IN our scouting dept., how LONG have they been there and WHY are they STILL there. If someone tells me that everyone is less than a year on staff I'll sit in the corner and be quiet. However, I don't think that is the case. If we dug deep I'll BET you that we have people (scouts) who have been with this organization for YEARS! Possibly even decades. Just musing and pondering...
