I've been a Jets fan for a long time and the way we lost this game sent up red flags all over the place. The Dolphins manhandled our D at the LOS. The Dolphins prepared a game plan to beat us and executed it. We prepared a game plan that had little to do with Miami and the in game coaching was really bad. The Dolphins run the ball and stop the run, that is a team designed to front run not open it up. We win the toss and give the ball to Miami. We lose an opportunity to get ahead and give them an opportunity to beat on our D which they did. We have a 3 point lead at halftime, get the ball with an opportunity to take a two score lead in the third quarter. Miami's D has been exploited all year with the deep pass we try and establish the run and the short pass and give the ball up after 1 first down. End of game we keep time outs in our pocket and allow Miami to not only score but run the clock out. We have had almost a decade of BB in NE owning our ass, I hope what we saw in Miami isn't the future. With the exception of Westhoff who we all know is a great coach, we simply were outplayed, out executed and totally out coached before and during the game.
Both team's defenses got tired in the 4th Q. We traded TDs the entire Q except for a 3-and-out by both teams. We needed to avoid the 3-and-out and at least give the defense a rest. I wanted an onside kickoff after our last score.
My Dolphins are a power running team. We have 2 former first round picks running the ball in Ricky and Ronnie. 2 more at tackles in Jake Long and Vernon Carey. Last year when we got beat in the playoffs by the Ravens part of it was we got beat on the line as our interior linemen were a patchwork. We upgraded our interior. It's not the same line Rex Ryan faced in Baltimore. Last year Ronnie was coming off an ACL injury and wasn't running at full ability. He's closer to the form he was displaying in 2007 when he was leading the league before blowing out his ACL. The Dolphins have a lot more talent than you guys expected. This was your first time going up against our revamped line or Chad Henne. The Dolphins and the Jets have gone through a lot of changes since last year. Both teams are better than they were. You guys knew how good your Jets have become you just didn't realize how much the Dolphins have improved as well. Next meeting is going to be really good.
I hope this loss really humbles Rex Ryan. He thought he had the secret formula in stopping the WC in which he didnt prepare the team as good as he should have. Maybe this is the wake up call this team needed. Too much trash talking in my book when the team hasn't done squat. Rex was thoroughly out coached and he had the "deer caught in the headlights" look throughout the game. Hopefully Rex, your cocky ass will not defer the coin toss so maybe we can score first and have Miami play catch up.
First up, I have no idea how much better the Jets are, yet. Different, yes. I don't think the Dolphins are necessarily better. They're having success running the same offense they did last year. They still have no real viable WR threat. Their secondary is very young. Whether their better back there remains to be seen. As of right now, it's a weakness. I agree with you on one point though. This was our first chance of going against Henne. I give him credit, he played well. But, much like Sanchez, now there is film on the guy and what he likes to do. Playing against the Bills the week before provided nothing really on Henne. Rex will watch very carefully how N.O. approaches trying to rattle him. If their successful, the NYJ, and the rest of the league, will copycat what works against him. Ryan is too good of a coordinator to not figure out what makes him uncomfortable. The wildcat certainly takes tons of pressure off him, for right now.
You know we have a sick Dline rotation right? We got a good run stuffer in ferguson(made some plays) and pass rusher in Phillip Merling who completely destroyed Matt Ryan in week one. Randy Starks is also a beast. How about you give a little bit more credit to your Oline that allowed Sanchez to pick our D appart?
I dont understand how Matt Ryan got destroyed... granted you sacked him twice, other than that Matt Ryan had a great game
Phillip Merling single-handedly got penetration on his Oline and sacked him twice, pressured him at least 4 other times in succession. I am talking about busting Ryan up big hits pressure but he just happened to get rid of the ball before he got sacked. I didn't mean it as he destroyed Matt Ryan and ended his game or whatever.
I think with Rex Ryan coaching and with Sanchez and Braylon Edwards you guys are a definitely improved team. My team has beefed up it's offensive line. Ronnie Brown is fully healthy again and looking great. Our wide receivers and secondary are still a weakness. However that Henne pass to Ginn for the TD is what Dolphins fans have been waiting for since Ginn was drafted. Also we have a smart young receiver in Brian Hartline you'll be seeing more of in the future. As for our secondary we've already seen some good things from the rookies. Vontae and Sean Smith both already have some awesome interceptions under their belt and are going to be good pick ups for the Dolphins. I think that the Patriots time in the sun is ending. The Jets and the Dolphins both have smart new coaches, talented young QB's are hungry. I think the balance of power is shifting in the AFC east. The Jets and Dolphins have both reloaded and we're going to be seeing some awesome games between our two teams in the future. Next game at the meadowlands is going to be awesome!
Rhodes is not physical enogh to matter! It is time for him to stop reading his clippings and play football. The DEFENSE was FLAT! That is on REX. They reminded me of a HERM EDWARDS coached team that night. We need a passrush! One or two sacks and we win that game in the 4th quarter! We just did not get the job done! JENKINS was inconsistent! Versus the Saints he was non-existent! Is he wearing down? When he wants to turn it on, he is top notch. Yet JASON FERGESON played lights out! We got rid of FERGY and he is still playing well! Hartsock also had a good blocking game. Dustin must be reading his clippings too! he has done nothing and shows that he can not block at all. DA BRICK is getting annoying with his lack of run production. Ellis had a bad game as did Pace. He was not in football shape. That Hail Mary pass looked terroble! Snachez did not throw it right! He is a rookie and I will give him that but Henne has even less experience then Mark. Our OL gets too little push in the run game. MIAMI played a perfect game and only won by 4 points! We did not play well on defense at all. I am glad that there will be a rematch in a few weeks. IMO the JETS will win it!
The doom and gloom in the thread is way overstated. I didn't post until today because I knew I couldn't be rational about a loss to the Fins until I had gotten some perspective on the game, the kind that only time provides. Here's what I saw Monday night: A typical Jets-Fins game on Monday night. No more, no less. None of these affairs are callable until the last drive of the game and in lots of them the 4th quarter score beats the other 3 quarters combined. The Jets had trouble stopping the Wildcat and they had trouble stopping Chad Henne after the Wildcat had done it's work - bringing the safeties up some. They need to figure that out, because Calvin Pace's opinion aside, the Wildcat we saw on Monday night is a very effective clock management offense and it does the job of grinding down the defense. Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams are about as much as you could hope for in that offense. I particularly liked (well, not, but admired) the plays where Brown took the snap and faked to Williams going around right end. God help the team that does not respect that play action because it's a rare CB who can bring down Williams one on one reliably when he gets outside with the ball. Obviously the Jets need to figure that one out in a hurry. Secondly, the Jets have relied heavily on the blitz to suppress the opposing passing game. This makes all sorts of sense in today's pass-happy NFL. The problem is that if the other team is not committed to passing the ball then the blitz becomes a poor tactic, and if that's the main trick the defense has up its sleeve then where are they at that point? I'm glad we had this game week 5 and not in the divisional round of the playoffs, because it gives Ryan and Pettine a chance to figure out where the Jets need to go on D when the blitz is absolutely not going to decide the game. Those were the main reasons the Jets lost. They couldn't stop the Wildcat and the blitz was a non-factor as a result. Here's what I saw that was good: Mark Sanchez lead two TD drives in the 4th quarter starting on his 23 and his 37 respectively. The two drives between them took 3:43 off the clock. Think about that. When was the last time a Jets QB scored 14 points in the 4th quarter to overcome two deficits and did it like a two-minute hero? Braylon Edwards showed us what he can do with two really amazing catches. He's the real thing if he's focused and that makes Sanchez a dangerous QB late. Wait until Cotchery gets healthy again. That'll give the Jets Cotchery, Edwards and Keller, a trio of targets that any QB in the league would take without complaint. There are a few things that I'm starting to find disturbing as a trend and I'm not sure what they mean at the moment. Leon Washington has not scored a TD yet. He also hasn't been particularly explosive as a KR. For everything he gives us, and that's a lot, his explosiveness seems to have been suppressed through the first 5 games. He has not had a play from scrimmage that went more than 19 yards at this point in 67 touches. That seems odd to me given what we've seen him do in the past. It's also bothering me a bit that the announcers and analysts have been so lavish in their praise in the absence of actual concrete results from him. I'm getting the distinct impression that he's jumped the shark, although I hope I'm wrong. The pass rush has been negligible except when there was a 6 man rush coming. There have been only a couple of plays so far this year where 4 or 5 guys made a big difference. Now when the Jets send 6+ they're getting pretty good results, except against Miami, however that makes me wonder what the Jets will do to adjust if the NFL successfully adjusts to their blitz schemes. I hope there's an act II in the offing because even if the Wildcat is not an option for every team against the Jets, frequent misdirection and screens will be and I don't see the Jets as handling that all that well at the moment. I'm going to relax now and watch the next few games and see what happens. The Jets have much more talent than Buffalo and Oakland and they will have the Fins in the Meadowlands to see if they learned their lessons well from the Monday night loss. I'm still thinking 6-2 is where we wind up at midseason, and that's where I've been since the win against the Pats.
That's a refreshing and very good response to this thread. I had kind of ducked the board for a few days as well, because I know how this board gets after a loss, especially a division loss, and I just didn't feel like reading through that crap at this point. Yesterday I was watching those Williams outside handoffs in the wildcat and wondered to myself the same thing you are talking about, how do they get a guy quick enough lined up wide but can also tackle? The only answer I can come up with is Eric Smith. If the Phins put the Cat package we saw last night on the field with Ronnie taking the snap and Henne on the sideline, you could use that 443 set they were using with the following personnel on the field: DE 92 Ellis DT 70 Devito DT 77 Jenkins DE 99 Thomas SLB 97 Pace ILB1 57 Scott ILB2 52 Harris WLB 33 Smith CB1 24 Revis FS 25 Rhodes SS 36 Leonhard Have Smith spy the side of the field Ricky is opposite and line up in front of the wide man, with Revis on the opposite side of the field. If there is only one wide man, shift Revis deep, move Rhodes closer to the line to cover the intermediate pass and put Smith on the only wide man. None of their wideouts will hold a block on Eric Smith. Food for thought. They have a pretty tough offense to defend in this formation, because there are many mismatches and you front four needs to be fast laterally but also ready to shoot the gap if they show a look up the middle. I just don't think the studied enough film to find Ronnie and Co.'s tendencies in the Cat.
Well thought out post Br4dw4y5ux...though I wouldn't call the game "typical". I was surprised we were still in it at the end. The inability of the Jets to adjust to the wildcat really upsets. Saying that they didn't expect the Dolphins to run it as much as they did is a piss-poor excuse. They rarely stopped it from being effective...and it's not like it's disguised at the snap. And it got worse as the game went on. Ryan pretty much summed it up at the post game presser, quite honestly I thought. That's good, because to fix a problem you have to first see and admit what's wrong. I don't think the next two games are gonna give any indication of our ability to defend against the wildcat. We'll see on Nov. 1st I guess.
Here's the problem with this angle: Look at the size differential on the field if the Jets do this. The Fins had 6 offensive linemen, 3 tight ends, Brown and Williams on the field on some of those plays. How the heck do the Jets man up against that, particularly when the Wildcat gives the Fins 9 blockers on the play? The thing about the Wildcat that is unappreciated is that it gives the offensive team an extra blocker for the run game. The QB is off the field much of the time and so his position effectively turns into a 3rd tight end. That's a huge difference. What I was thinking was that the way to handle this is to keep Revis, Rhodes and Smith on the field and sit Leonhard down while it's happening. You put Revis on whoever is split wide, have Rhodes key on Ronnie, have Smith key on Ricky and put 8 men in the box tight. The instructions to the 8 men in the box are to tie up their man and not let him slip a block on them. At the worst case you get Ronnie Brown throwing the ball to a tight end who can be caught from behind by three tacklers in the secondary who are all capable of both running him down and then dogging him to the ground. Best case the Wildcat has been shut down.
I totally agree on the surprise at being in it at the end. I thought the Fins were just going to abuse the Wildcat till they had a real lead. They spit the bit and didn't come back to it heavily until the 4th quarter.
It really depends on the personnel they put on the field, and I think recognition failed when they had the formation you spoke about. I'm down with the Revis/Rhodes/Smith secondary in a 4-4-3, maybe putting all the heavy guys you can up from to plug the inside, manning up the C and D gaps and zoning the flats with the safeties while spying Ricky with Smith. DE Ellis DT Pouha DT Jenkins DE Devito SLB Pace ILB1 Harris ILB2 Scott WLB Thomas CB1 Revis Man up SS Smith Spy Ricky or Polite for the sweep FS Rhodes Smith is the key here, because I can easily see Rhodes arm-tackling RW or Polite. He's just not a hitter. I don't like to see Douglas off the field in this case, though, because he gets excellent penetration, but we need size up front to draw DTs in case they are going for an inside gap.
Since when is Chad Henne a bum? The guy was the starting QB at Michigan for multiple seasons and was pretty damn good, especially in 2007. He was a 2nd round pick in 2008. Sorry, I just don't see how the term "bum" would apply. It's not like he was an undrafted free agent from some lower level program like Weber State or North Dakota or Florida A&M. Nor is he a failed 8-year veteran like Joey Harrington. I was unhappy when the Dolphins skipped over Brady Quinn. Oh, it would have been so very grand if the Dolphins drafted Quinn because that guy is a true bum on the football field.
