1. Do you guys remember when I expressed my concerns over Jets passing defense? Apparently Shannahan saw that too, and made sure he took every advantage he could get out of it. He used Peyton Hillis to keep the defense honest, and let Cutler have it. Quite the other way around, but that worked against Jets D. This works simply because the offense doesn't have to deal with Kris Jenkins this way. Why face him if you KNOW you will lose? Take him out of the game with no huddles and the like. You also know you will have a chance to run through the middle once Jenkins is out of the game. It's only logical that someone finally attempted this. Also, I've seen some stats from some site (I think it was Football Outsiders) and they ranked Jets defense on TEs at the rock bottom (32nd); Jets didn't give up a lot of yardage, but it was still hefty (about 7.5) and the completion ratio was pretty much ridiculous. (over 60%) This means either OLBs are not doing their job right, or SS is not doing his job right. Or both. (And I am inclined to think that neither OLB nor SS is doing his job right.) 2. Harris or not, this defense is not applying enough pressure on the QB. This is a well-known fact in the life of NFL: if you give any QB enough time to make play, he will. Doesn't matter whether he's a hall-of-fame QB or about-to-get-cut 3rd stringer QB. If you don't limit the time QB has behind the pocket, he will pick any defense apart. For this very reason, I have brought up a few ideas involving schemes that could generate pressures without jeopardizing the entire defense. Obviously, Dick LeBeau knows how to generate enough of pressure to the Patriots offense that burned us with 400 yards in the air. My hunch is that, Jets OLBs are too bulky, and not fast enough; in other words, Jets version of 3-4 looks more like 5-2 with 2 mobile DEs. If Jets are not setting them on rush, Jets are at a severe disadvantage; Jets OLBs are not fast enough, do not cover well enough, and cannot create turnovers if the ball is thrown at them. In order for this defense to succeed, we need a big LB that is FAST, and NOT DUMB. I don't want to use this "converted from DE to LB" as an excuse; hell, look at Mike Vravel or Tedy Bruschi. They used to play DE in college - naturally, they are huge, but they were scarily fast in their youth, didn't play clueless and could actually cover when the pass was in the air near them. 3. Which brings us to: the lack of pressure. we have had a lot of sacks in the first half of the season, but that number has diminished a lot. I strongly doubt a stallion can turn into a donkey overnight (or vice versa.) Look. Giants have almost similar problems when it comes to the coverage from the secondary. Actually, Randy Moss burned Sam Madison all by himself last season. So the question is: why do we always see our pass D blow up, yet we don't see Giants pass D blow up in the same manner? It all comes down to the pressure on QB. That's all there is to it. Doesn't matter how many open receivers you have - if you cannot see if, where and how that receiver is open, you have no chance in hell to complete a damn pass. Brady didn't, and Favre didn't against the Giants D last year, if you need any confirmation. It's not even like Antonio Pierce is so athletically gifted to cover the entire middle section either; he belongs to the slower group of MLBs, if you didn't know yet. It's just that he is quite a bit smarter than the rest. (So "tight coverage in the middle" BS just makes absolutely no sense, let me tell you.) Apparently, whatever worked earlier in the season is not working as well as we'd like to see - and that means we must adjust as we go on. Quite apparently, Bob Sutton is not capable of doing just that. *Or this D wouldn't have looked that sorry last night.* ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 4. I then saw uncharacteristically horrendous game from Cotchery - a fumble that was returned for TD, then drop on the 4th-and-3 to name a few; Also, I've seen a lot of missed tackles, and armtackles (meaning the D was caught out of position a lot.* That Favre overthrew during the crucial drive didn't help the cause either. Overall, very sloppy game from all phases of the game. They looked out of focus, and the result showed. But tell ya what; elite teams 1) PLAY like elite teams and 2) HANDLE itself like elite teams. Look at the Patriots last year. Midway through the season, the media flurry of "going undefeated" started rearing its ugly head. How did they handle themselves? Just like professionals, and went about businness, taking care of it. It's a shame they didn't win the SB, but that's rather pointless; throughout the entire season of mounting pressure, they didn't crumble, didn't come up with those "Off-days" like Jets did yesterday. If you want to command respect from the rest of the pack, you have to live up to the expectation, and then achieve some more. At least on the mental stage, this team doesn't look ready to be a prime-time team as of yet.
Look at the Giants if you want to see an Elite team. They don't even need Plax, they just steam roll everyone with the run game and then the pass rush does the rest. You can't go far into the playoffs without a pass rush. I don't care where or how we get one but we need one... if you need to put Rhodes in the box then do it... we must do something because QBs have ALL DAY to throw.
