Post Game Thoughts: Jets 17 Ravens 34
There is no point to even write a review of the game. It was a disaster from the opening kickoff on. Sure the Jets gave a few glimmers of hope with a Joe McKnight kickoff return and an Aaron Maybin strip sack, but the fact is the Jets were manhandled on national TV. There are years when a team you really believe is good just does not fire for whatever reason and sadly that is what is happening with the Jets. If not for a typical Tony Romo implosion the Jets would be 1-3 right now and that is the record they deserve to have.
The league has caught onto Rex Ryans defense. Its no secret that the Jets are not the most physically gifted group of players on defense. Antonio Cromartie and Darrelle Revis are exceptional athletes and Calvin Pace is above average, but nobody else on the defense is. Bart Scott and David Harris are nice players, and Scott can be excellent playing downhill, but they are not the type of athlete that causes a team to panic or change a gameplan. The Jets do not have those kind of players on defense. The Jets rely on scheme and the scheme just is not producing the same results it did in 2009 or even 2010. Personally I believe the Jets defense was terribly affected by the lockout. Ryan did not have the opportunity to install new wrinkles into the defense nor did they have a chance to make sure their players were in great game shape. When you have these type of players you win when they are better conditioned both physically and mentally than their more athletic counterparts. That didn’t happen for the Jets because of the lockout.
You can gameplan elite corners. For whatever reason teams did not do that these last two years, constantly throwing on Revis and wasting plays. Now they just avoid it. You saw it early in the game. They attacked the slow linebackers and more specifically Eric Smith and Jim Leonhard in coverage. If Joe Flacco was competent he would have had at least two mores score early in the game but he just missed players wide open against these guys. Smith was responsible for a big gainer tonight, a big gainer to Kevin Boss last week, and the big Jason Witten catch in week 1. He isn’t any good. Leonhard blew a tackle on McFadden last week and would have given up a score this week if not for Flacco. He did make the play on Witten in week 1 and Smith his hands on passes in week 1, but you cant expect them to compete with decent players.
The defense is not playing at a high level. They have been blown off the football early in 3 of 4 games. They allowed over 160 yards of offense in the 1st quarter this week before settling down again. 10 first quarter points is totally unacceptable. The Jets defense has now allowed 27 first quarter points with no excuses about the offense putting them in that position. They just get picked on early as if they are warming up while the opposition is ready for an NFL game. You can’t be an elite defense playing like that. This week you saw Ryan seemingly pulling guys to light a fire. Maybe it worked, but its ridiculous to have to do that in a game. The Jets want to win with defense, but this is not a defense that you can win with. The fact that the Ravens and Jaguars are incompetent on offense doesn’t make it better. It’s simply an excuse because you don’t want to believe what your eyes tell you and that is that the defense is no longer great. It happens. That same discussion is going on right now in Pittsburgh and Atlanta with their teams. 2010 means nothing in 2011.
The offense is a disaster. Its no secret if you read my writings on non contract stuff that Im a big fan of Sanchez. More often than not I point out the positives in his game and the potential he has. Some is stat based most is just a lifelong Jets fan hoping to finally see a franchise QB. He is having a terrible season. There is a big difference between putting up big statistics, which he did in the first few games before tonight, and having good games, which he is not having. The decision making is terrible. Watching him and the head coach call a time out to whine to officials about a fumble was an embarrassment. That is the kind of garbage that goes on when I play a pickup basketball game and someone calls a foul and the whining goes on and on and on about how weak it is to call a foul. You lost. Accept it, put your head up and move on.
Last season Sanchez was one of the most ineffective QB’s in the NFL. He made up much less percentage of the Jets offense than almost any other starter did for their team. And when he did throw he wasn’t very efficient the way others are. You love the guts he has to take hit after hit after hit, but guts doesn’t always win you football games. This isn’t Rudy. This is the NFL.
Franchise QB’s make a team great and escape the other deficiencies a team has. There are not a ton of them in the NFL, but one of the worst things you can do as a team is to convince yourself that you have a franchise QB when you don’t. That is what Dallas has done with Romo. Its what the Jets did with Pennington. These players become a hindrance when you give them a big contract that affects what the team can do in the future from a cap perspective. I certainly trust that the Jets front office won’t make that same mistake with Sanchez, but this has the makings of a very tricky situation. He gave away any hope this week with yet another interception and the decision making just is not improving. It was unfair to expect too much improvement this year, but he’s regressing with the interceptions. If this continues the Jets will bring in a legit veteran backup next year in the event he bombs.
The team has an offensive line with three players who probably would not start on most NFL teams. I don’t even know if we have ever seen an in-game offensive line shuffle like we saw against the Ravens tonight that was not brought on by injury. They shifted the left guard to center, moved the center to the bench and brought on a 2nd round draft pick to play guard. The 2nd rounder, who is a NFL dud, did his best to get Sanchez killed in just a few plays on the field. He was quickly pulled and they went right back to the starting group. RT Wayne Hunter just isn’t a good player. They thought they could get by with him the way they did with Slauson last year. They cant. NFL teams are employing more pass rushers and more often they are willing to move rushers around on the field. This is no longer the league where you line you’re “A rusher” with the LT. You move guys around. You get an A and an A- out there at the same time. Wayne Hunter cant be hidden the way a guard can. How often do the Jets now run behind Ferguson? It sure seems like its pretty often, a direct statement about what they think of Hunter. And speaking of Ferguson can someone please remind him to just look outside before the snap? He’s a very good player, but he never seems to pick up a DB blitz.
I worry about the wide receivers. This isn’t Braylon Edwards who was just happy to be here and rarely complained about anything. WR’s are divas and they chip away at team chemistry when things are not going well. The Jets have two of them in Holmes and Burress. Holmes has already complained about not getting the ball and I have a feeling it will be even worse this week. If these guys stop playing, and there are tons of realty good ones who have in these situations, it is going to be a mess. Holmes is here for the long haul and he has to understand that. He needs to build up some chemistry with his QB and keep the complaints in house. The NY media and fanbase pick up on these things and it becomes a distraction for the team. Just look at the Joe Namath story from last week. Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez had to spend half the week fielding questions about Namath’s opinions on the team. It doesn’t matter if its true or not true. You can not be a player creating unneeded controversy. David Clowney, a preseason wonder and regular season never was, was already tweeting about how predictable the offense is. That’s going to get some play among fans and a ton of play if Holmes starts chirping about the offense.
The offensive lines implosion means no running game. The Jets median carry is around 2 yards. That’s miserable. There are no holes and when there are holes the runners are not good enough to do anything special. Im not sure if we ever appreciated just how good Alan Faneca and Damien Woody were in their roles with the Jets. They were not the greatest of players and both gave up their fair share of pressures on the QB but the run game was never the same without those two. It was time to move on from Faneca but maybe the Jets should have tried to find a way to coax Woody into one more year. Those guys, along with Mangold, drove the running game. Without them it’s not even a part of the offense. Its forced the Jets to be a one dimensional team with a QB that has never played that role.
One of the benefits that comes from playing on a bad team like Matt Stafford had with the Lions is that you get the opportunity to just throw and throw and throw with no real bad consequences since there are no expectations. You can learn a lot from those situations if you have the mental toughness to handle the poor results. Sanchez never had that learning experience. Now that he is getting it he is looking more like Joey Harrington than Matt Stafford. Its almost like being a rookie all over. That’s not an excuse for him as a 3rd year pro should play pretty well, but he is being called on to be a leader and a difference maker because of the problems in the run game and maybe he isn’t ready for it.
Is the playcalling great? Who knows. When the personnel is as bad as it is on the Jets right now what blame can you really give the offensive coordinator. Im not a fan of Schottenheimer’s but replacing him is not going to make Sanchez an All Pro or the offensive line any good. Maybe it would have helped somewhat last year, but at this point its just scapegoating for a team with mediocre personnel and poor play on both sides of the ball.
When the Jets made all those big moves in 2008, pre-Favre, every fan said that the Jets were playing on a 3 year window. At the time Pennington was the starter and the feeling was the contracts were signed to where Kris Jenkins, Faneca, Woody, Thomas Jones, and Pace as well as longer termed Jets guys like Chad, Ellis, Rhodes, and Coles gave the Jets until 2010 with 2009 as the peak opportunity and 2010 as the last hurrah before facing a likely rebuilding effort. The faces changed, but maybe that’s really what it was. Defensively the team peaked in 2009 as did the run game. But, other than the coaching replacement, the on field replacements were not great.
Sanchez is arguably worse than both Favre and Pennington at the late stages of their careers. Slauson isn’t Faneca. Hunter isn’t Woody. Gholston wasn’t an NFL player. Wilkerson isn’t Ellis. Greene isn’t Jones. Smith isn’t Rhodes. That doesn’t mean Wilkerson cant be Ellis or that a Kyle Wilson cant be a special player, but right now they are not. Maybe it is just time to sort through the trash, have one of those learning seasons and move on. The Jets have a good head coach and front office. Years like this can happen. You just don’t want two in a row.
The season certainly isn’t over, but if they get their doors blown off them by the Patriots next week it will be hard to have much faith in the Jets this season. That doesn’t mean you give up hope and Ryan certainly know all too well about that from the 2009 season, but you also need to be realistic. Start lowering expectations and communicate what you are really looking for out of 2011. The Jets have a number of players that might not be back next year- Leonhard, Smith, Hunter, Greene, Thomas, Pouha, Burress, Mason, Tomlinson, Slauson, Moore, Greene, Tomlinson and even Cromartie, with whom the Jets should have a contractual out in early February,- and you have to evaluate who can be replaced. You cant afford to be stagnant in the NFL unless you have an elite QB and the Jets certainly will not be if the losing continues. But the head coach needs to lower expectations accordingly.
The Jets have faced these moments before. They thought they were eliminated in 2009. They got demolished by the Pats in 2010. They nearly came back to make it to a Super Bowl this past January. As a fan Im still hopeful, but the leaning on 2010 is no longer a real reason to hope for the team. It’s a crutch if the Jets think that it means anything other than for an inspirational speech from the coach. As of October 3rd they are not a good NFL team. Lets hope they change it next week of this is going to be a long season. Go Jets!
You mentioned the front office and while this seems like the worst kind of MMQB�ing, I can�t absolve them from this.
The Jets got through each of the past two seasons relatively injury-free by NFL standards. That luck allowed them to mask the significant lack of depth EVERYWHERE on the roster. Tannenbaum�s aggressiveness has no doubt put the team in a position to enjoy its recent successes. But it also has them operating with zero margin for error and that bill is coming due all at once.
Ryan�s influence on Tanny and his heavy involvement in personnel decisions also plays a role. He genuinely thinks he�s going to win the SB every year, and I love him for that but it also leads him to endorse and even push for short-term fixes (draft picks for players that either will walk soon after or will be due a large contract).
Quality over quantity drafts are great when you are batting .1000 and plucking Revis� and Harris�. But even the best evaluators of talent (and I�m not entirely sure where we are with that*) are going to miss a lot. Just another area where the approach has left the team with no margin for error.
(*Sidenote � I recall on draft day after the Kyle Wilson pick Rex basically got up there and gloated about how he landed the best corner in the draft and threw his brother under the bus in Cleveland by saying he preferred Wilson over Haden. Oops).
Your on-field analysis is spot-on as always and I won�t waste time re-hashing it.
Thank again for these write-ups.
And that, really, is what scares me most: they didn't self-scout at all. They had chances to see that maybe Sanchez would regress, or that Hunter couldn't cut it, or that they needed a real backup after McElroy went down, but instead they blithely went along their way and now bringing in David Garrard or Shawn Andrews is too little, too late.
After the AFCCG loss last season, you made an excellent point: one conference title game can be a fluke, but two (especially two in a row) makes a team elite. Now I think maybe the window is closed and unless something drastic changes, we're looking at the kind of season that gets Tannenbaum and Rex fired after 2012-2013. What a depressing mess.
A QB goes as far as the play of his O Line. We know Mark Sanchez will be abysmal behind this line.
Parcells knew to spend money on the oline. You can't have all stars in every position but depending on Wayne Hunter at right tackle ? That is mind boggling.
Sean- its tough. Left tackles cost a fortune and the Jets have the 2nd highest paid center in the NFL. Its difficult to keep investing big dollars in the line. We had it from 2008 to 2009, but you had Brick, Mangold, Harris, Revis, and Sanchez playing for pennies. Now these guys are vets and have huge money seasons. Something has to give when your draft picks pan out. Its why the draft is so important. If Vernon Gholston, Kyle Wilson, and Dustin Keller were stars there would be no money invested in Cromartie, Burress, and Pace(though in fairness the Ghost would have been pricy). Scott would probably be on his last season. You are looking at an extra 10-15 million to play with for things like offensive linemen. But its difficult to overspend there when you are already spent on your own picks and your free agent acquisitions.
BC- It was worse than anyone could have imagined. This is different than the Pats game. The Pats game made us question Sanchez but it wasnt epidemic. It was one really bad game by the whole team. This game was just a validation of everything we saw in weeks 1 through 3 but didnt want to believe because we love the team and saw them do well the last two seasons. Hopefully the Jets can find the athletes to fill the voids if things dont work out for the team this year.
I am a big fan of Rex Ryan, just like I was of his dad, Buddy. Having said that, I think both of them make amazing defensive coordinators. I have never been comfortable with a head coach ignoring his offense; especially when his offensive coordinator is average at best.
I am reminiscent of Bill Parcells just after one of his players made a boneheaded mistake. "What were you thinkin' there, Dingleberry?" They would then have a discussion, and Parcells would turn that mistake into a learning experience.
In this past game, after Sanchez threw a pick, the coaches were screaming at him and basically telling him, "Thanks to you, we're gonna lose this game now!" There was no teaching moment; just "How dare you make a decision! I'll let you know when it's time to pass the ball and to whom."
From the moment I witnessed that stop light wrist band on Sanchez's wrist, I knew his growth was going to stagnate. No one was teaching him how to be a leader. Instead, they were teaching him how not to lose a game.
How many times last year did we see Sanchez pull out a come from behind victory because in the last quarter, when the Jets were going to lose anyway, they would loosen the reins and tell him to go out and win the game?
This year, however, there is no run game to keep the opposing defense honest, and Sanchez has to pick a target in four seconds or less. His wide outs are not getting open in that amount of time, and the high school offensive line can't seal the pocket. Even Hall of Fame QBs are going to make mistakes in that situation.
You want your QB to grow? You don't throw a QB into a pit full of rattlers and then scream at him and blame him every time he gets bitten. You take him aside and say, "Tell me what you saw on that play? What was the Free Safety doing when you were checking down? Where did the Middle Linebacker move to? Next time look off Plax, let him do his hitch, and then............"
I've been heaping praise on the coaching staff, and I feel it is truly amazing they have accomplished what they have with the personnel they have, but this is one area I do feel the coaching staff is severely lacking in. They have hindered Sanchez's growth; teaching him to not take chances, to not ruin things, to let the defense keep them in the game, and let the running backs wear out the opposing defense.
And now that there is no running game and the defense is not as imposing as it once was, they are asking Sanchez to do everything contrary to his coaching to this point, and to do it in four seconds or less because he will otherwise end up on the seat of his pants.
I love my Jets; always will, but I am painfully standing by my prediction that the Jets will end up with a .500 season this year. Worse, thanks to the salary cap, we are looking at most likely two more years of rebuilding.
This is one of those times I would LOVE to be wrong. I would gladly eat crow to see my Jets make it to the big dance once more before I die.
GO JETS!!!
Jazz-I hope that is all it is with Sanchez. One of the little things I notice when watching him compared to Stafford and Freeman (as well as Ryan and Flacco last year) is that they look poised in the pocket. They look like pros even when they have a bad game as Flacco did Sunday night. Mark still looks like a kid in the way he plays. Like he is still overwhelmed by all of it. That probably has something to do with coaching and maybe something to do with his demeanor. I know he works very hard at learning the game and you dont want to read too much into the off field stuff, but maybe the hanging with the 17 year olds off the field says something about his mindset and where he is compared to some other players. It just seems like these is something other guys do early in their careers that he isnt doing.
The issue with Ryan and the offense is one I have always had an issue with since he got here and it became obvious that this was a team of "his guys" and "the guys on the other side of the ball". I dont get it. Im not sure I have ever heard of a coach with such a seemingly distant relationship with his QB from a in game prep standpoint as Ryan. Usually you hear about head coaches discussing things with the QB about gameplans, pointers, situations and what is expected, etc..for every game every week. Its also the QBs job to communicate this back to the team since he likely has more credibility with the players than the head coach during rough patches. I think it was last year (or it could have been 2009) where they basically admitted that Ryan never comes into an offensive meeting and the OC handles everything with Sanchez. Thats insane. If a guy like Brian Billick, who was already a decent head coach and familiar with Ryan, was in Schottys position I could at least understand it a bit, but in Schotty you have a guy that has never been a head coach and has no real football relationship with the head coach. I dont get how you take the no nothing rookie and put him into that spot. I have a hard time believing that Steve Spagnuolo and Jim Schwartz, both defensive coaches, entrusted Bradford and Stafford to their offensive staff. Im not sure I understand why the Jets make such a split between the roles.