I have a friend who's a Jets fan but lives away from the area. Upstanding individual that I am, I watched the re-air on NFL Network last night and took notes on anything that stood out to me. I noticed a few things of interest... 1. Brett Favre was very good when protected. It wasn't until later in the game he began to show any signs of being flustered (though he clearly was on the last drive in OT). I don't think Favre was getting much help from Coles or Cotchery as of his first seven passes only 1 was to Cotchery, the others were to Baker (4) and Smith (2). As for his two INTs, Cotchery fell down on the first one. Had he kept his feet and driven back to the ball it would have been a dropped pass (the coverage was still tight) at worst. On the second INT Favre said someone was supposed to run a seam route; Cotchery ran a 12 yard curl while Smith ran a 10 yard out. They were both awfully close to each other; somebody messed up. 2. Miller and Walker had been open most of the game. Lowery was left to cover Walker (I don't know why I didn't see Revis here) and Walker and Russell picked on him. Most the completions were on inward breaking routes. On one play I did notice Smith slipping as he tried to deliver over the top help. Miller had been open a few times earlier that game. Right after Leon muffed the punt, Miller was open at the 5 on a seam route for a 15 yard gain. The man in coverage was Harris. I don't know if it's the muscle he added in the offseason or if Miller is just fast (probably a bit of both) but Harris could not run with Miller. Russell later overthrew Miller downfield while he had a good two steps on Harris. Everyone wants to crucify Rhodes for his deep safety blitz, but he barely touched Harris on that play. Even if Rhodes wasn't there I think Miller still would have been open (only this time by only two or three strides as opposed to five). 3. Thomas Jones' great day was the result of the oline kicking some serious ass. I saw him go untouched on two runs of 20+ yards. The only guy to touch him was the DB that tackled him. When the Raiders stiffened up the run D (like around the goalline) he did nothing. Leon Washington scored on a 1st & Goal run and did so while breaking two tackles. Watch the play again, there was a man in the whole waiting for him and he shook him off. Thomas Jones gains maybe 3 yards there. I firmly believe that Leon Washington is the best halfback on this team and should start. Jones' running can best be described as "path of least resistance." I don't see him trucking people, breaking ankles, or out-running too many guys out in the open. Leon can do the last two things on that list and might even be better at the trucking part than Thomas Jones. I just thought I would throw this out there because I thought the observations I made were valid and interesting. I also know I bring an interesting (somewhat detached emotionally) perspective to the board, so I hope this is a good read for you all.
Nice job, and I agree with most of it. Except the part that Favre did a good job early when protected. The Jets had 250 yards rushing, and only 3 points in the 4th quarter. I understand that the blocking was weak, mostly caused by running the spread after the Raiders had clearly figured it out, but still, Favre had a horrible game. Favre should win games like this against weak teams. That is one of the reasons he is being paid $ 13,000,000
Favre looked bad at times because of Woody having a bad guy. Trevor Scott was beating him frequently.
I think Favre himself still played well. The protection was bad and I didn't see Cotchery and Coles getting too much separation.
i like your evaluation, especially about jones and washington. Jones would never had scored on that play that Washington did. He likes to hit holes and if they arent completely wide open he will then dive/fall forward through them instead of trying to bust through. This seems to happen even if the only thing blocking his path are arms of the opposing defense, he will dive/fall. We need a runningback that has some power.
I agree completely with Washington over Jones. Jones is going down after first contact a lot and just doesn't have any power. If what you're saying about him running untouched for 20 yards is true than I would have killed to see Leon take those handoffs considering his speed and his open field moves. He is much more of an asset at the HB position now than Jones will be. Personally, I think that Jones is nearing the end of his career. We should probably bump Leon up to the starting position and let Jones come in and spell him along with Chatman. Maybe the rest will allow him to get more of a push against his would-be tacklers and perhaps break a few tackles now and again.
Some further observations and comments: 1) Favre was playing OK. The line was having trouble with the blitzes and speed of the Raiders O line. Let's face it, he is getting older, needs protection because he is not a very good runner anymore and I don't think he really wants or expects to have to run with the ball. When Favre had time it seemed the receivers were not open. Maybe they are playing hurt. It kinda sucks on TV because you can't see downfield, they always follow the ball. 2) The O line did a very good job at pushing the Raiders line back for us to run the ball. Jones had gaping holes and should have even broke a run for paydirt a couple of times but he seems a bit slow to me, even in hitting the holes. I'm not sure if Washington is the answer because I don't think he can take the pounding like Jones can. 3) Our kicking game sucks! poor punts and not kicking the ball off through the endzone, like the Raiders did to us. I feel this is why we lost the game. It was similar to how the Patriots beat us. We had lousy field position. 4) Three turnovers and Baker falling down..nuff said. 5) On the good side, we were in position to win the game and the defense played well. we are not missing the tackles like last year, stuffing the run, and finally stopped some teams from getting all those 3rd down with 8-10 ytg, 1st downs on screens and dump passes. The Jets are a talented team..but whatever happened to that creativity on offense?
Thanks very much for these observations. I also agree with CKNY6 who would like to have seen Leon get those handoffs that Jones took for 20+ yards. On that one glaring play where Jones made next to no effort to juke or beat the last defender I'm certain Leon would have taken it all the way. I clearly remember getting out of my seat thinking "Touchdown!", only to see that Jones did not have an extra gear and had no moves to offer either.
i completely agree with all your points. it's nice to hear an unbiased, emotionally detached perspective
Leon is the most explosive player on the Jets' offense, even with Favre under center. The fact that he continues to get few touches (as in carries and receptions) continually baffles me.
A lot of people are surprised that the Jet WRs had so much trouble getting open, I think the issue here is that Cable benched Huff and told the team that from now on playing time had to be earned by performance, not by draft position and reputation. This really shook up the team and they played hard. People talked about how hard the Raiders played for Kiffin, they played harder than that when Cable made open threats about playing time. And the person who improved his play the most was Deepangelo Hall, who decided to finally show up and be the player Davis thought he was getting.
I like how the Jets had only a minute and a half more Time of Possession that the Raiders, yet they ran for over 250 yards. I would go into how that sucks and why, as well as my view on the extremely failed gameplan that was used to combat that Raiders - but I am too tired and cold.... this will be edited, or i'll post it later in this thread.
Lowery was picked apart most of the game. Our receivers were shutdown (Asomugah and Hall are Beast) our offense was terrible on every aspect passing the ball. We should of ran it everytime in OT. Maybe we would of faired better.
or maybe we should've passed on more 1st and 2nd downs instead of giving Brett the ball on 3rd and long and expecting him to convert when he has less than 2 seconds to pass the ball.
I think I disagree on Washington as the feature back right now. That may be in his future however he hasn't shown that he can find holes at the line of scrimmage at all. In fact, he gets tackled at the line of scrimmage more often than any small back I've seen recently. He is a great open field runner and the Jets probably should be using him as the third down back to go out in the flats and really stretch the coverage. If you look at Washington's actual performance his four long runs for the year have been for 17, 13, 11 and 11 yards totaling 52 of his 88 yards. In the other 20 carries he has gained a total of 36 yards or less than 2 per carry.
I always find it a bit funny when certain jets fans want to start blaiming favre for losing a game "he is suppose to win". If you watched the film, Favre himself did not look that bad. Even on the ints - cotchery fell making that a easy pick, and on the second, someone ran the wrong route. Rest of the game? He was pretty spot on. However, there are some issues. 1. The spread is great. It does work, and Favre CAN MAKE it work. However, why are over half the routes out the spread dump offs? Start doing some crossing patterns, one guy go deep, one underneath, one up the seam? There seems to be some bad play designs in that spread formation. They may just need to dump it unless they can pu thte WR's in better positions. 2. Coles and Cotchery were not open most of the game. 3. The only time to me it seemed favre was flustered was the last drive in OT. Of course, the guy is pushing 40, and OT was coming close to a close. He KNEW this was most likely the last time he was going to get a chance to win. 4. Other factors went into the passing game: Lack of decent protection consistently, and the lack of the top two options getting open. That is either the players fault, or coaching. Sometimes both. If Favre has nowhere to go to, especially if option one and two are shut down all day, and the line isn't going to give him the time to get to option 4, then what can you expect? It was a "decent" game by favre. He can't do everything. That is the problem I see with certain jet fans: It's as if they expect favre to just DO EVERYTHING. Even for how much Favre carried the packers in the first half last year, none of that would of been possible without options 1 and 2 getting open.
We were creative two years ago. It doesn't take long for a team to learn what needs to be done to defend well against a "creative" offense. The playbook may be different now, but our coaches enter the game with the same mentality they have had in the past with a completely different style of QB (Chad Pennington was a pocket passer) as opposed to the one we have now.
Agreed - I said this from day one: The success of Favre, and this offense, is going to come down to the coaching staff. I am never worried about Favre adjusting, however, he cannot completely change the way he plays football because the staff wants him too. They do tend to treat the playbook with Favre just like he is Chad, and that seems wrong. Hurt arm or not - Favre sure as hell had plenty on that deep ball where baker fell down. So, I think it's easier to blame play design. There were rarely any throws over 20 yards (2 to be exact), and I think that is the conservative style of routes being called. It still comes down to the staff adjusting the offense. Your team is being built to win now. right now. This season, and if you can convince favre, next season. It's a very small window and hte staff needs to adjust. What are Favre's strengths? Arm Strength Improvision Roll Outs (yes, he is GREAT on roll outs) Play Action Passes Improvision just sort of happens. You can't design for it. Arm Strength is great for deep balls and slants. But alas, there are not slants in this offense. Roll Outs - No idea why the jets don't do this. A lot of teams do this. It moves the pocket, buys more time, and gives WR's some options. Also, because of Favre's strength, it's easier to sneak one guy behind the defense on the other side and have favre throw it deep opposite field. Play Action Pass - The biggest thing that baffles me. The jets start to run all over a team... and the one thing that it opens up, the PA, is completely ignored. Ask yourself - when you have 200 yards rushing, why is there only 1 pa pass called, and it is a 8 yard dump off, but when you have 60 yards rushing, you call 12 PA passes. Fact remains - the passing offense is being called very conservative. I mean, the most aggressive play calls I have seen with the passing plays came all on 4th downs. I mean, why do they save it for 4th downs? Because the defense doesn't expect it? I mean, that is just silly. Throwing down field opens up those underneath routes. *sigh*
