First play of the game really demonstrated that. Play action roll-out to the right with Conner heading out to the flat. That ball needs to be delivered the moment the receiver turns his head to look for the ball in order to give him a chance for YAC. Conner was into his 3rd step looking for the ball when Sanchez delivered the football. That allowed the LB to close and stuff the play for no gain. BTW, I thought Coples looked very good in his first game.
Positives Coples,everyone knows that he was a bright spot last night.Just wanted to point out that he also had a bit of success against the one's,he managed to beat their RT right off the snap and would of got to the QB if not for the RB who was staying in to block. Ellis and Wilkerson,both looked really strong and the point of attack and got off blocks to stuff the run.Wilkerson also looks a bit more dangerous against the pass,could be a big year for the 2011 draft class Yeremiah Bell,made good plays against the run.Forced an incomplete pass against Gresham in the 1st quarter too.I reckon he could be an important part of our defense. Garrett McIntyre and Jay Richardson stood out from the 2nd and 3rd team defense. Matt Slauson,felt he was our best linemen.Made some nice pull blocks when playing at guard and he more than held his own when he was playing centre. Austin Howard,as was mentioned he wasn't terrible.We didn't really try to run off tackle on his side but he done well in pass pro against both the 1's and 2's.He did look a bit shakey on the first sack on Sanchez(but he wasn't the reason for the sack),but after that he didn't make a mistake. Vlad Ducasse,looked pretty strong when blocking linemen and I don't think he made a mental mistake all night.Did struggle a bit when he had to block in space. Meh Just wanted to point out that whilst I mentioned Matt Slauson,Autsin Howard and Vlad Ducasse as positives,Wayne Hunter also looked good when he was playing in preseason games.It's one thing to look good for a quarter in preseason,and it's another to look good for 16 games with complex gameplans and match ups. Tebow was Tebow,looked good taking off but he holds onto the ball too long and often invites pressure from the defense. Was hoping to see a bit more from Maybin and Powell,the two guys who have been talked up the most. Wasn't impressed with Marcus Dixon,he's role player (pass rush one gapper) and his role may be redundant with the addition of Coples. Obviously the offense needs to get on the same page.The starting o-line only had two mistakes,Ferguson on a pressure which forced an incompletion and Moore missed a cut block on a defender who stuffed a run.It probably wasn't as bad as most might fear,but it does show that everyone has to do their job for a play to work.I do wonder if the offensive stategy would of been different if Holmes was in.We didn't really look to go deep when the starters were in.It's early days so I won't mark this down as a negative just yet but work is needed. Negatives Calvin Pace was our worst starter on defense.Looked poor in pass coverage but also failed to contain on the lawfirms 12 yard run. Blocking from the TE's,Keller was the sole culprit on two different stuffed running plays.Cumberland and Hayden Smith also had bad games.Josh Baker looks alright though but I think we'll need to get an actual blocking TE from somewhere. Robert Griffin looked decent at guard but bad at tackle.He may need to prove that he can play multiple positions,that could be the diffrence between the practice squad and the 53 man roster. Matt Kroul won't make the team,he still has good raw potential but doesn't look like he's improved from last offseason.Also can't see the RT number 67 making the team,he was poor.
The WR core will have to step their game up for us to be successful on offense. Seperation is key, we all know Sanchez can't get it to someone unless they're wide open. No threading needle.
After rewatching the game and focusing on line play I wanted to note that I thought Maybin was doing much better against the run this year than at any point last year. He doesn't look like a positive player against the run, but he didn't look like nearly the liability he looked like last year. I noticed him holding his ground at the point of attack against the run a few times.
Good point and it's something I'd agree with it.He showed the technique to play the run last night,obviously the lack of strength and bulk will stop him from being a run stuffer.
For me one of the biggest negatives was special teams, which I was pretty critical of last season as well. The punt block being the most obvious issue as without that TD it's a 4 point game. But even aside from that there were some bad returns or times where they could have ran it out but decided not to and set up our offense on the five yard line or worse. Now part of that was just very good punting by the Bengals but it's the ST job to help set up the offense and they didn't do a good job of that at all. I was also a bit disappointed in Hill, he didn't get many throws but it's his job to get open. I thought Sanchez and Tebow were both "okay" but nothing to be excited (or depressed) about. Coples had a great game and I was really happy about that. Trufant wasn't great but other than that our defense as a whole was pretty good. We could have been a lot better against the run. Anyway, I'm a big believer in not reading too much into preseason games positive or negative and there were both of those last night. Hopefully as we get closer to the start of the season and the roster solidifies we are more on the positive side than the negative.
Our conditioning looked good. We knocked several bengals out of the game. Offense was scary, to be expected. I thought on 3rd and short they should have brought the Tebow package in. He gets the short yards when you need it most and then Sanchez comes right back in.
Quinton Coples - Constantly, around the ball and making plays. He needs to work on his finesse moves but you can't ask for more from a rookie in his first game. Kenrick Ellis - Showed good speed to the sideline and finishes his plays. Demario Davis - Great on special teams, showed his speed on coverage. Austin Howard - Held his ground in exception of a false start penalty. Tim Tebow - Showed excellent composure under pressure. Yeremiah Bell - Great job in coverage and considering he's never played in this system he knew exactly where to be. Relax debbie downers...its preseason week 1....if youre all butt hurt over this game you arent paying attention to the right things for a week 1 preseason game.
great post...going to have to disagree on Calvin Pace...he made a variety of plays in the backfield, but otherwise an excellent post.
A very good wrtie up from the Ledger Rex Ryan said that DE Quinton Coples had a "tremendous game," per Jenny Vrentas of the Star-Ledger. I agree. Here are the notable plays Coples made last night: On one series, he had a tackle on first down, and a batted pass ended a drive on 3rd down. Batted passes are becoming a point of emphasis around the league. From the Super Bowl last year, there is audio from the sidelines of Tom Brady saying that throwing through the Giants' DL is like throwing through a forest. Batted passes lead to interceptions, and if you can get your hands up, it messes up the QB's throwing lane. Rex Ryan and Mike Pettine will be happy with that series. Later had a tackle for a loss of 3 yards. That turned a favorable 2nd and 3 into a much more difficult 3rd and 6. He had a stop for no gain on a 1st down play. On a pass rush he beat G Clint Boling badly to the inside, and and drew a holding call on C Reggie Stephen, who had no choice but to drag him down so his QB wouldn't get killed. A 3rd and 16 (that the Bengals converted on the play) became a 3rd and 26, and knocked the Bengals out of FG range. That play saved at least 3 points, and maybe 7. Sack / forced fumble near the end of the game. Monster game. There aren't a lot of bigtime, play-making 3-4 defensive ends in the NFL. The 49ers' Justin Smith and the Cardinals' Calais Campbell both come to mind, as does up and comer J.J. Watt in Houston. Coples was an enormous talent in college at North Carolina who fell in the draft because of concerns that he could become lazy at times during games. At the Senior Bowl, I watched him beating interior offensive linemen in pass protection drills with ease. The Jets should look to try to get one-on-one match-ups with Coples on OGs early and often. If he can play with the same level of intensity that he showed last night, the Jets could very well have an absolute steal on their hands. ESPN's Rich Cimini noted his "three up, three down" for the Jets first preseason game. Quinton Coples makes an obvious appearance in Rich's "three up" section. He also has Bart Scott and Calvin Pace among his "three down" section. I thought Bart Scott in particular really struggled covering BenJarvis Green-Ellis. He looked slow. Green-Ellis is not a burner by any measure, but he was able to get a step and a half on Scott. Teams are going to try to get Scott matched up on RBs all season. CBS' Len Pasquarelli thinks the Jets are concerned about the depth at RB behind Shonn Greene. He notes that Bilal Powell and Joe McKnight both struggle in pass protection. That may very well be the case, but I liked what I saw out of Powell last night in pass protection. On Mark Sanchez’s first series, Bilal Powell did a nice job picking up a blitz. He stoned Thomas Howard cold right in the hole, but Ray Maualuga came in right behind Howard and picked up the sack. Well designed blitz. The TV commentator put the fault for that play on Powell, but he can't block them both. Then later, Powell was one-on-one on DE Jamaal Anderson. Jamaal Anderson goes 6'6, 280. Powell goes 5'10, 204. That’s a matchup that should favor the Bengals every time, but Powell did a nice job on Anderson, allowing Sanchez to step up and run for a first down. I also thought McKnight did some nice things as well, showing nice elusiveness and pass catching skills. TheJetsBlog.com opined on their immediate reaction after last night's game. One player they singled out for having some struggles was Isaiah Trufant. Again, I agree. The Bengals twice threw high on 5’8 Trufant. The first time was on 3rd down. Perfect throw, good catch, and Trufant actually had good coverage, but he simply couldn’t reach the pass. Then later, the Bengals connected on a big play down the sidelines to Marvin Jones for 45 yards on a high pass. Trufant got tangled up with Jones’ feet on that one, and fell. But to me, it looked like the Bengals were purposely picking on Trufant's lack of height. Gang Green Nation made some observation as well on the first preseason game. I agree on most of what they're saying, except for the offensive line having a bad game. I thought the OL, and we're talking about the starters only here, played well. On one sack of Mark Sanchez, the Bengals sent more rushers to one side than the Jets could block, and they sent a total of 6 on the play. As noted above, on that play, Bilal Powell even did a good job picking up the first blitzing LB. Mark Sanchez had one-on-one matchups all across the field. He has to do a better job getting the ball out sooner. On another sack of Sanchez, Manny Lawson smoked Jeff Cumberland on a speed rush. It should be difficult for a DE to get around the edge on the strong side of a passing formation when a TE stays in to block, but Lawson got around the edge with ease. That's on the TE, not on the OL. If we go back to the first practice transcript of training camp (via TheJetsBlog.com), here is the first thing Rex Ryan said: ...on defense we have kind of the mentality that we can stop anybody running the football. And on offense we had the exact opposite mentality, that we could run the ball on anybody. One one drive last night, after connecting on a 45 yard pass play, Bengals ran the ball 6 consecutive times (3, 5, 7, 7, 5, 1TD). That has to kill Rex Ryan.
