I see a lot of people assuming that Mangini took over the defense in the second half of '07, but there is no basis for this assumption. Is there? Correct me if I've missed an article, it happens to me sometimes. Don't get me wrong, the thought occurred to me that Mangini had a lot to do with the adjustments and different adaptive attacks that we saw after the bye, but I also saw Mangini standing on the sideline as he did during pretty much the first half of the year, I didn't see him constantly providing input to Sutton, and I didn't see him hovering over guys like Harris and Rhodes. Honestly, where does this rumor come from? Besides our overactive imaginations?
The thing that was different in the second half was that the Jets had Harris at ILB instead of Vilma and they had some really weak offensive teams on the schedule, just like last year. The Steelers managed only a 4th quarter FG against Miami the week after they played us. The Chiefs had been dead offensively since the first quarter of the season, ditto for Tennessee. We got nice weather in New England for the second year in a row. Miami? The after the bye improvement both years was largely a mirage. Hopefully they know that in Hempstead right now and will fix the defensive line before next season.
my thoughts are that harris was the difference...he played like a middle linebacker should. I love vilma but i think he was hindering the entire defense.
Harris was not the only difference in the defense post bye-week. The defense saw a much greater substitution of players after the bye, instituted the "creep D," and upped their sack total significantly. There is no way one player could have caused this. The Jets used a much more varied set of formations (1 and 2 down lineman) and started putting Ellis at OLB to help rush the passer. There definitely was a change in the philosophy. As for the Steelers v. Dolphins game, check the weather and the field conditions. If you actually saw the game you would have seen a field that would have slowed down any nfl player and seriously hindered the offense of even the Pats.
I totally disagree with you. The Jets came up with a lot of different defensive fronts and much more often than the half-assed occasional trickery they were trying early in the season. Harris is great, but a rookie isn't going to make those types of adjustments on his own against professional teams, those were adjustments that a DC will make, including moving Ellis and Coleman outside to ROLB a few times, the floating front 7 (which we saw a LOT more often after the bye), multiple DB-back blitzes with Poteat and Revis and a couple of others... if you're going to bash the CS as much as you do, you should be able to recognize when they do things effectively as well. Make no mistake, we have shit personnel in the front 7 (for the base 3-4) on defense and Harris didn't just come in and turn them to gold, and weak offensive teams is a bad excuse.
I forget where, but it was mentioned in an article that Mangini took more control of the defense during the bye-week
Just because we don't see him on the sidelines talking directly to people he could still have been doing much of the directing in the game planning stages before the game and approving/disapproving schemes and other ideas. I don't know how we could know this though. Big assumption. If the defense is sucking you would think eventually the HC is going to stick his nose into the defense at some point. He could also have been talking via the headsets to Sutton on the field. Who is to know?
Yeah, you're right. But when you're calling a defense, or at least from what I've seen, you have your assistants and position coaches going over still shots, you're translating that into an overall approach to the players, you're finding out what your defensive captains are seeing as trends, there's a lot more going on than you can really control over a headset unless you're in the booth getting an overall picture. IDK, I guess there's some weight to it.
Is this something 4 the nu-year....u created a football thread :breakdance: Not talking about y Britny wears pink stockings & the hole world is dumb....except.... 4 u......i'm ex-press'd ...:beer:
I see where you are coming from and it is probably true. It might be a little bit of both. I don't think there was any credible news on the issue of what turned the defense around. With Parcells or some other coaches you would know he took over a role... you would hear about it. But you hear very little about who is doing what with the Jets.
In the 2nd half they played at NE(1st), at Dal(2nd), Cle(8th) and Pit(9th). The average offensive ranking of the pre-bye teams was 19th, the avereage of the post bye was 14. This was NOT like '06 where the shed got much easier the 2nd half, the sched got harder the 2nd half this year. The D was not a mirage in the 2d half like it was a year ago.
Using the Miami-Pittsburgh game as a way of judging either team's performance is just being ignorant of what the conditions were like.
There are a myriad of reasons for the turnaround this year after the bye week. 1.) A more aggressive scheme. There were articles that said the D players were not happy with the passive approach employed during the beginning to the season. The use of Ellis as a Pass rushing OLB or more safety/corner blitzes etc. Also they instituted at the players behest that stand up formation. They use it 4-5 times a game and it seems to be very effective. 2.) Substitutions- It may not seem like a big deal but this is extremely important. Mangini/Sutton employed way more substitution. Drob ,Ellis , K. Coleman etc. were substituted quite a bit. This kept an undersized front 3 more rested and fresher. Mosely, Pouha, Bowens, Devito etc. provided needed relief. Prior to the bye week anyone not named Ellis,Coleman or Drob got precious little time. Also Bowens was in the OLB rotation more. This was also important because the Jets rarely won the TOP battle. So the defense was on the field for a consistently long time. I do not think they were gassed at the end of the games nearly as much. 3.) Harris- Say what you want about a rookie and not being able to Captain the D, to adjust properly and or make the required adjustments, signals, and formations. He came in and performed remarkably. He was stout against the run, can shed blockers not absorbed by the front 3 and has a knack for making the big play. Another overlooked part of Harris's game is his ability to provide a measure of a pass rush. Since the Pass rush is designed to come from the OLB's in a 3-4 and it was sorely lacking from our OLB's. It may have been just the shot in the arm for this D to become an effective unit. 4.) Rhodes waking up and the inclusion of Elam (Yes, I know about his sordid past and hate men that beat women.That is not the issue though) into the lineup. Prior to the bye week Rhodes was having an ordinary mundane season. It was probably the root cause of him not making the Pro-Bowl. I do not know if it was from Kerry thinking he had to do it all or the Jets scheme which changed measurably also helped him. One of the main contributors was Elam. When he was included it seemed KR just started coming on and showing he is a premier safety. Now again Elam is not a Pro-Bowler by any stretch. However, he did free up KR to roam more, be it on blitzes, ball hawking and to be in coverage to get those important picks or defensed passes. Elam allowed Rhodes to be the free wheeling premier safety that was missing the first half of the season. 5.) The improvement in the general pass defense, CB's. There are a couple of reasons for this. One, the improvement of Revis. From the Buffalo game on, Revis improved as the season progressed. It got to the point where during the end of the season the other team was largely throwing away from his side. Poteat playing well, as well as Barret and Coleman improving. It seemed like the CB's just started covering tighter and not allowing nearly as many big plays. Whether it was the result of a better pass rush or not, fact remains this group improved. 6.) The pass rush. The defense sacked the QB more and or had more disruption than the beginning of the season, an order of magnitude more. It was because of several factors: Scheme,substitutions,Harris,better coverage, and the freeing up of Rhodes. This is why I listed it at 6 because it most likely happened as a result of mixture of all the factors I listed prior (#'s 1-5). Now the answer to the question was Mangini involved in the Defense more after the bye? This is the only thing I can come up with: There is no smoking gun for this at all. I am subscribing to the "where there is smoke there is fire" theory. There are enough people saying that it was Mangini's doing to make one think it was most likely the case. After all, Mangini can not come out and say," It was me that did all the adjusting and tinkering after the bye as I was not at all happy with the way our Defense was performing". It is not his style and would certainly undermine anything Sutton would try and accomplish between then and seasons end. So while there is no definitive proof of Mangini taking over it was most likely the case.
Guilty as charged too. There was a definate change at around about the bye week and I assumed that Mangini had had some kind of input , wheather he lit a fire under Sutton or simply took more control I don't know , but D is Manginis 'forte'. http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/f...eric_mangini_might_call_some_plays_for_j.html
Could you please be more bias? You mention the Steelers 1 FG against MIA, but don't mention it was played in a bog on MNF with possibly the worst field conditions in the last 20 years, but when it comes to the Jets... "We got nice weather in NE"...the weather this year was better than last year and the big difference was the field turf over the chewed up sod of last year. I know you like pointing out the negatives. But with so many this year, it would be easy to do this objectively without making arguments that rely on dubious facts.
yes the play calling changed, but maybe because harris can play the middle like he should and the coaches were more confident on playing a different game .. this is just my speculation but i think harris was definatly a reason why the defense played a different game in the second half of the season....harris and vilma could be a lethal combo..
