I really want to believe that was him holding cards for the playoffs. It may ahve backfired, but I can't disagree with the philosophy.
This is absolutely silly. When a team is fighting for the playoffs, it doesn't "hold cards for the playoffs". What would be the point?
Is it really that far off? If we get QB play like we did this year we're not going anywhere and fast. I also think the point of the article was with all these guys having gauranteed money they don't really feel there is any chance they lose their job. The fact is we do need to upgrade in certain areas like RT, Safety and OLB. Everybody wants to act like Harris is an elite player and the truth is he just isn't. He's a good player but he's not some elite game changer like Patrick Willis or Pierre Paul.Teams don't game plan around him. I've made this argument before but I think having Revis while it is a good thing also hurts our defense in regard that you can gameplan around him to completely take him out of the game which is something you can't do with elite passrushers. He's the best in the game by far but because of that he doesn't get much oppurtunity to make game changing plays the way a LB or WR do. I do think things can be fixed but liek I said in another thread Rex is going to have to work hard with Sanchez. I think he and Mark need to have a relationship like Belli and Brady do. Rex needs to break down film with Mark and help him read defenses. IMO the best way to get a QB to read a defense is to have an elite defensive mind break down coverages and what to look for.
Yeah, guaranteed contracts are bad stuff for an under-performing group. If Sanchez doesn't find a way to pick up his play despite the other issues he's going to be David Carr all over again. The Jets have not had a double digit sacker since 2005, John Abraham's last season in NY. That's just an amazing stat. We've had two defensive-minded head coaches in a row and have not had any player get 10 sacks in a season in the last 6 years. Being built around a cornerback is a bad thing. Revis is a great player but the Jets would be much better off if they had a safety at his talent level and a couple of average corners than the way they are setup now. I think we might be surprised at how much better Sanchez looks in a normal pro set as opposed to the thing the Jets have been running the last three seasons. I think we might be shocked at the improvement in the overall offense when the players are asked to do things they have trained to do from college onwards instead of something that nobody has ever tried to do before. One of the things about the Jets constant import of new players in the skill positions on offense is that not only were the Jets bringing in lots of new faces, they were also asking them to do stuff they'd never seen before.
Being a Bills fan you wouldn't have noticed the tremendous shift in defensive approach from the 2010 regular season to the 2010 playoffs. As Rex frequently points out, everything they do is supposed to be geared towards winning in January. Whether that's just another case of him blowing smoke or not is debatable, but there's no debating that they have in fact had success when they did make it and we did see things that we didn't in the regular season.
So does playing "clutch" and that's not reflected in the stats, not for the Pats and not for the Jets. The fact is that the Pats D made stops when it had to most of the season, and the Jets D did not do that, especially when it desperately needed to do it down the stretch. Of course, it helps that the Pats averaged more 32 points a game and gave up only about 21 while the Jets averaged less than 24 points a game and gave up nearly 23. The Pats obviously could overcome defensive lapses while the Jets could not.
This was a problem most of 2010 as well. They didn't change the defense until the playoffs to be more coverage/zone based.
Yup, they're stuck with Holmes. So what? Yeah he's a cancer, but he's not an underachiever. Hopefully they will get him in line. I've heard "The Jets will be in cap hell" for years under Tanny, and every year they've put a good product on the field. After next year the bulk of Sanchez's contract will be up, which will provide some cap relief. I just took a look at the JetsCap website, which linked up to this article: http://www.thejetsblog.com/2012/01/17/bga-2012-salary-cap-update-1-0/ Basically, the Jets could restruction Sanchez and D'Brick along with cutting Eric Smith and Wayne Hunter. More could be saved by restructuring/cutting other players. Here is the summary, That’s a lot of information to take in, but basically the Jets have cap-room saving options ranging from no-brainers (Smith, Hunter, Ferguson, Sanchez = about $12m) to risky propositions (Harris, Revis, Cromartie = about $10m) to moves that could be more counter-productive (DeVito, Moore, Keller, Scott, Pace = about $7m). And then there’s Holmes, who is a category unto himself (anything ranging from a $12.5m cap hit to a $4m short-term saving).
Excellent point. Having an elite CB is a luxury, not a necessity. Jets definately would have been better off with an elite safety and/or an elite DE/OLB forcing teams to game plan around them. Taking Revis out of the game is a pretty easy thing to do, as you saw the last 2 years.
Unless you think a bunch of players in their prime will suddenly regress, and that the offense wont get better just because Schotty is gone, I would argue that if you left the team in tact, and told Sanchez to not work on his game, but go fuck Kate Upton for the next 6 months, this team would still win 10 games next year. Thats why arguments like the one Lombardi made are just dumb. Bad players will be gone. New Players will be brought in. You will have addition by subtraction and a new draft class. Maybe Manning will be a Jet, etc.. But to say the sky is falling here is a bit of a joke. The Jets could beat one of the SB teams 9 times out of 10, and the other one 4 out of 10 times. Yet this team is all of a sudden garbage? And if you dont think this non-sense is motivating the guys that are here, just wait until next year. Honestly, the only question that this team will have next year, if Sanchez is here, is whether he can not suck against good teams enough to get the bye instead of the 5 or 6 seed.
The fact is the Jets D has gone south in year 2 from year 1 and year 3 from year 2. The case isn't closed at all.
I'd argue this is the salient point. Ryan's style is a hard one to walk back, yet to succeed he has to do just that to some arguable degree. Walk it back too little, and he loses the team again just as he has admitted he'd done. Walk it back too much and you lose credibility amongst the team and the fans because some will think you're a phoney. Rex has shown himself as unwilling to be a disciplinarian. Some will argue that he doesn't want to publicly call out players; however, it appears to be the case the he's not anxious to do it in private either. This was pretty apparent in how he dealt with Braylon Edwards after the DWI arrest for which he later pleaded guilty. Edwards embarrassed himself and his team yet the consequence issued by the Jets was less than a slap on the wrist: sitting out for one quarter. So what message did that send to the team? If you screw up, we're not going to come down on you all that hard. I think there's also a secondary breakdown that can happen in these kinds of ego-massaging environments. On every NFL team, there are 22 starters, plus a couple of kickers who don't play any other position ...so let's call it 24 starters on a team with a roster of 53. That means there are about 29 players on every team who would love to move up into a starting role. If you're one of those 29 players, and the guy ahead of you on the depth chart is someone who is causing trouble in the locker room, is arguing in the huddle, and is considered to be a cancer by some significant portion of the team, how do you react to the fact that your coach consistently offers cover for that player? Now we can argue as to whether that's an accurate portrayal of Rex or not, but that isn't what's important. What is really important is whether or not a significant part of the team perceive him that way ...that's how you lose a team.
But how do you measure a defense? How many of Mark's 26 turnovers put the defense in an awful position? I don't know off the top of my head, nor do I know about other turnovers/special teams that might have put the D in a bad spot, but I would assume that is why many people judge by yards instead of points given up. Edit: Yards make teams like the Pats and Packers look worse because when another team is in comeback mode the D tends to "bend but not break", so I'm not saying yards are perfect, I'm just saying that PPG aren't either. We can always look at football outsiders. haha.
Yeah, people dont talk about that, but the defense last year was not what it was in 2009 and 2010. There were barely any mad all-out blitzes, aside from the Tebow td. A ton of zone, etc... I am not sure if Rex didnt like the personnel he had last year, or whether he thought the success he had against Manning and Brady the year before with the zone can translate, but the defense was not the same last year..
Only 4 times during the 2011 regular season did the Patriots hold opposing teams to less than 20 points. The Patriots offense carried that team, not because the Pats defense did marginally well at holding opposing teams out of scoring range.
Both stats are flawed. Most tend to avoid points given because for some reason it accounts for fumbles/interception returned for touchdown when the defense never saw the field. It doesn't really make sense why they keep them in since the D is never on the field for them. Yards are flawed because you can let a team drive 90 yards but if they miss a FG you have 0 points but the D still played poorly. At the same time a team can drive 4 yards off a good punt return and score a TD and the D was not put in position to succeed but they only gave up 4 yards. EDIT: took away an idea I had for yards gained vs available yards to gain since it didn't work out as well as I thought it my head
We have 3 bad contracts: Holmes (shitty, SHITTY contract), Pace (over-priced but at least he's a starter), Scott (2 down player but we had to pay him to get him out of Baltimore). That's it. I do agree Keller doesn't fit this team (it fits what Schotty wanted to do, not what Sanchez needs or what Rex wants to run) and that Rex should shut the fuck up instead of talking up every player like he's an all-pro. Criticizing the Jets will be the media favoite sport this year, like blowing them off was their sport a year ago.
