Feel free to comment on other DB's. Antonio Cromartie I was really disappointed with Cro's performance last night. Granted, I missed the kick-off return and had to see it on replay after the game, but I could give two shits about Cro's excellent kick return ability. Where are the jams?! I didn't see Cromartie put hands on a receiver in press once all night and the passes he gave up were a direct result of his receiver's ability to run his route untouched. I was so frustrated when Cro got called for his holding penalty- he could have disrupted that play early by jamming his man at the line, but instead he waits until the guy is ten yards downfield to put hands on him. My theory is that Cromartie must feel that jamming his receiver in press coverage is as disruptive to his coverage ability as it is to his receiver's route-running ability. That's a comfort zone he needs to break out of if he wants to acheive his full potential. No cornerback in the league is good enough in coverage to contain his man without some initial contact. Darrelle Revis knows that, Dennis Thurman knows that, and Antonio Cromartie needs to learn that. Jim Leonhard Leonhard is putting together a very important message to the quarterback's in this league during the preseason: don't overthrow the ball in the middle of the field. That's a great message to send when we've got guys like 6'5" Kenrick Ellis, 6'8" Pitoitua, 6'3" Sione and 6'4" Wilkerson playing on the line. When a quarterback needs to throw it over their hands, but overthrowing the football comes at a high cost, the window for complete passes over the middle shrinks tremendously. I'm so excited for this secondary now that Leonhard is back. Because of injuries and new additions, the DB's never really had enough time to gel as a cohesive unit last season. This year, the sky's the limit. Donald Strickland I never have anything bad to say about D-Strick when he's on the field. Never. Yeah, I know that's a tenuous "when," but the dude is just a solid all-around cornerback. I'm thrilled with what I've seen out of Kyle Wilson this preseason (the guy is closing and tackling like a true nickel) but I see no reason why the nickelback position isn't Don Strickland's to lose. That was a beautifully thrown pass from Eli Manning to Mario Manningham in the corner of the endzone in the third quarter last night. But Strickland had perfect coverage. Perfect.
Strickland played good in coverage, he did give up one fairly deep play (can't remember who, might have been Manningham as well), but both 15-yard PFs could have been avoided. During the regular season, those are both killers.
Cromartie is the obvious guy to pick on. He is constantly in trouble. I wish Manning would have burned him during the two minute to teach him a lesson. He needs to step it up.
Our standards are way too high watching revis all the time. watch some other #2's around the league. most secondaries can't stop anything ever, and if they can it's not because of the #2 CB. As long as he's keeping his hands more or less to himself he's pretty awesome for the role. But seriously if we got Nnamdi somehow we probably wouldn't give up a first down all season. No exaggeration.
No. The first penalty, and that long gainer (20 plus yards) were was when he was with the 2s, playing against the Giants 1s. The second penalty was with our 2s vs. their 2s. That was an unnecessary spearing type play when he dove at their 3rd string RB after he was down. That was stupid. The face mask on Hicks wasn't good neither, but the PF was just plain, old fashioned stupid.
I don't care about Cromartie's lack of press coverage in the preseason. Our coverage units aren't going to disguise anything during these scrimmages, so it's not a big deal to me. He is a freakish athlete with amazing recovery speed. I expect big things from him this year.
I disagree. He had a couple of sloppy plays, but he was fine for the most part, and his coverage has been solid throughout most of the preseason. He was playing off his man quite a bit, but so was Revis. It's unsurprising to see different looks from the defense to see if they can still execute. For the most part, they did.
I am really not worried about our secondary, there is no way rex would ever show the giants anything they could use in film study when we play them this year. jim Leonhard said in an interview a few days ago that the defense is shifting from strictly man to man to more of what we saw in the playoffs; if this is true just imagine what these schemes will do to average quarterbacks and even lesser ones considering how we've seen Brady look awful and manning look average.
I'm not talking about about the off-man plays. I'm talking about the plays where Cromartie was clearly in press coverage (clearly!) and didn't jam his guy (usually Manningham). I don't believe this is a "well, he'll do it when it counts" type of deal. I think Cromartie feels very uncomfortable with contact at the line of scrimmage. I imagine he thinks his better off operating in his comfort zone, smoothly and fluidly emulating his man's route. That's OK. Like you said, Mr. E, Cro's a freakish athlete with amazing recovery speed. He's shown he has the talent to be a very good cornerback by relying on his instincts and natural abilities. But he could be a great cornerback if he dedicated himself to gaining confidence with the fundamentals of press coverage. He has to want to do that, though; it can't be forced on him no matter how many highlight films Dennis Thurman chops up.
Just because he's up on his man doesn't mean it's press coverage. I just feel like the defensive coaching staff will always attack the quarterback will blitzers, but they won't disguise coverages in scrimmage games like this. Rex Ryan will always send players after the quarterback. We've seen some ridiculously high completion percentages from a lot of starting QBs because teams are playing base coverage on basically every snap - it's easy to read. During the regular season, I guarantee Cro will jam wideouts in certain situations to throw off timing - most likely when an interior DB is blitzing.
Agree on everything. I think Cro uses his hands only when he's motivated... and the preseason isn't interesting enough to him. Let's hope he wakes up in time for the reg season...
I didn't think that Cromartie looked that bad last night. He got burned once and took one penalty (and, though I want to see a replay to confirm, it didn't look like an egregious hold,) but it's preseason. That means that the schemes are all very basic and vanilla, which puts more pressure on the defensive backs. Plus, covering Hakeem Nicks isn't the easiest assignment in the world. Put it this way: of all areas of the team, the defensive secondary is the one that I'm least concerned with.
Cromartie was hanging all over Nicks and facemasked him and Nicks still caught the ball. No clue how he did that.
I understand. I'm only talking about plays in press looks that call for bump-and-run coverage: there's no bump, just run. If it were as simple as that, I'd be thrilled. But the jam isn't something Cromartie has in his back pocket that he can simply pull out when necessary; it's a fundamental of cornerbacking in which he has limited confidence. I view Cro's insufficient jamming skills the same way I would a quarterback who can't go through his progressions. Going through your progressions isn't a secret weapon; it's an essential fundamental of quarterback play. Can a one-read QB with freakish athletic ability still be successful? Sure; Mike Vick had a lot of success in Atlanta. But it wasn't until he became more confident in his fundamental skills as a quarterback that he recognized his greater potential.
Didn't DVR the game so i'm just going off my faulty memory but i believe Cro had a decent jam on the play he got flagged for holding. He looked like he was mailing it in all game other than that on D though. Kickoff return was nasty though.
Yeah they did. I dunno. Like another poster said. Sometime people get spoiled with Revis on the other side but when somebody needs a big play they always go to Cro's side. They use his strengths against him. Sometimes I wish he would play it a little more cautiously. He can be game planned. Sorry if I sound picky.
