The flip side of this is the runningbacks on the winning Super Bowl team: 1998 - Terrell Davis 1999 - Marshall Faulk 2000 - Jamal Lewis 2001 - Antowain Smith/Kevin Faulk 2002 - Michael Pittman/Mike Alstott 2003- Antowain Smith/Kevin Faulk 2004 - Corey Dillon/Kevin Faulk 2005 - Willie Parker/Jerome Bettis 2006 - Joseph Addai/Dominic Rhodes 2007 - Brandon Jacobs/Derrick Ward 2008 - Willie Parker/Mewelde Moore 2009 - Mike Bell/Pierre Thomas/Reggie Bush 2010 - All Aaron Rodgers Until last season every team that won the Super Bowl recently had either a back in the top 5 in rushing or a strong tandem to cover the duties. This season the primary contenders were Green Bay, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and San Francisco. All of those teams except Green Bay have strong tandems at RB to supplement the passing game and keep people somewhat honest.
Injuries and aging in the LB corps, losing more games and schedule. When you're losing teams run on you more to seal the deal. We didn't face any backs with elite, get to the edge speed like McCoy or McFadden in 2010, did we? You may be onto something with teams attacking the hashmarks, I wonder if getting better cover safeties helps?
The Jets allowed an average of 111 yards per game and just under 4 yards per carry over the season. That can't just be attributed to speed backs, I remember plenty of times where they were gashed up the middle by power backs and worn down. Plus, the run blitzes were almost non-existent, it's like Rex gave up on run blitzes when BT went down and shifted directly to read and react. This team is built from the back and it shows. But getting a better cover safety is necessary or this team will never compete with the more intelligent quarterbacks in the league. The middle of the field is a huge target against this defense.
I don't disagree with that at all. I'm not saying that a strong rushing game isn't important. I'm just trying to say that the ability to put points on the board quickly through the air is often the deciding factor between winning a SB and coming up short. We can look to the '09 Jets for a perfect example of this. #1 defense, #1 running game with Greene and LT, but no passing game that could be counted on to come up with a big play.
Well that game is a big exception because they actually hit a couple big plays in the air that game.. Their downfall was losing a CB so Manning could pick on the backup and losing Greene because all of a sudden they couldn't gash the Colts on the ground. Strickland and Greene hurt more than a lack of a great passing game in my eyes.
By the way, Dan Leberfeld, Jets Confidential thinks that Koetter would be a perfect fit for the Jets.
I don't care anymore I just wanna see Sanchez play with a different oc. Not that I think schotty was the problem 100% but I wanna see whether he was held back by the system, or if it's Sanchez himself that was the problem.
I didn't attribute it all to the speed backs in my post, not sure why you responded as if I did? I think you make a good point on the run blitzes - we were also much more conservative on pass blitzes this year. I really think Rex was holding cards for the playoffs. Remember the year before he threw both Brady and Manning a curveball by backing off all the blitzing like he was doing in the regular season and showing way more coverage schemes. I think he may have been all-in on holding a bunch of blitzes for his curveball this postseason and didn't expect his team to implode over the last month.
Sorry, I must have misinterpreted your emphasis, and I agree that the real kryptonite for the run defense this year was speed backs. The backs you mentioned, plus less prominent all-around backs with a second gear like Helu and Jackson (Bills) were able to gash the Jets as well. I think they were overall just weak at the edges, but it didn't take a true burner to exploit that weakness. I think they entire team holds a ton of cards for the playoffs, probably more so than most teams in the league, to their detriment. That may even be why we didn't get a real whiff of what Bilal Powell is capable of. They did the same thing with Greene in 2009.
I had the opportunity to shout some choice epithets at him at Hofstra during Farvapalooza 2008. What a weasel he is. Standing at the fence, speaking the gospel to the lowly peasants while the other writers were actually paying attention to practice.
Im bumping this for further discussion. Im not trying to be an ass by bumping this, i think it is an interesting topic and there were some good posts about it in this thread. It is interesting that we saw two elite QBs go home this week, one of which holds the all time passing yards record which he set this season. Meanwhile Alex smith and Joe Flacco are still playing. Smith had a good game, flacco looked worse than his stat line. Do we really need an elite pass offense to win? I agree the rules favor passing attacks, but running well and playing great defense still seems to work for some teams with average qbs.
I def agree with holding back and not revealing our full playbook our defense capabilities. Rex def was preparing for the playoffs, unfortunately we came up a bit short.
I was very pleased with the brand of football on display this weekend. I didn't think it existed anymore. That was a great weekend of football aside from the one game. Maybe it was just me, but I thought that the refs called the games differently too. There weren't any of those lame hitting a defenseless receiver calls, and the defensive PI and roughing the passer calls were held to a minimum. Maybe all the teams just didn't commit those fouls like we saw all season, but it seemed to me that the refs backed off and just let them play. I will relax on my stance that you must have a very good passing game and that ground and pound/defense isn't going to cut it anymore for the time being. I wish the games would be called in the regular season as if they were this past weekend of the post season though. I also hope they remain consistent for the remainder of the post season. It's confusing to see such a shift in how they call it.
Don't think there is an ultimate scheme that brings success offensively or defensively. All schemes/coaches are dependent on the players on roster & how well they fit. This is why I think it's actually better to go against most of the league when they're trying to copycat recent SB champions ... there should be less competition for the talent which fits the "unpopular" schemes @ that moment. West Coast, Run & Shoot, Ground & Pound, etc are all capable of winning when supplied the appropriate talent. What's more important than choosing the popular offensive/defensive schemes imho is having a coach that can adjust his system on the fly to match roster changes.
You completely ignore that two of the best QBs in the game ARE still standing and most likely will face each other in the superbowl.
