One of the most over-used phrases in football is bend-but-don't-break. It's pretty appropriate to describe that's exactly what the Jets did, though. The Bills had a lot of opportunities, but the Jets just kept bending-but-not-breaking philosophy and it worked. This team definitely has enough to be competitive and keep things close. Things I liked: 1. The coaching in this game was pretty good. Mangini recognized after the first Bills series that it was going to be a long day if they gave up any more long plays, so he sat the defense back, waited for his opportunities to get a shorter field and it worked very well. Counting the two 4th down conversions that the Bills didn't convert, that was a +5 turnover ratio for the Jets. The coverage scheme was very much a keep-them-in-front-of-you type coverage which made the game a much more grind-it-out game. It exposed Losman as a bit mistake-prone and not that great in the clutch. The game management was very nice and the a couple of those calls, 4th-and-1 sneak, 3rd-and-goal TD pass, were perfect calls for the situation. 2. The defense in this game might have given up a lot of yards, but it was still very effective. I've posted here before that the key to a defensive system like New Englands is that every player does his assignment exactly. Trust is one of the most important components in this type of defense and for the most part, they did that very well. The DB's were pretty disciplined in keeping the receivers in front of them and not allowing anything over the top. The linebackers stood their ground and especially in the second half, stopped the run. I like the progress they're making getting used to this style of defense. 3. I loved the special teams play. Buffalo was supposed to be one of the best, but we managed to pin them with some great punts from Graham and negated a lot of their offensive yard advantage. That said, the play by Chatham was idiotic. Things I didn't like: 1. We're still not using the runners effectively. We really need to use them in a draw-style offense. We're simply not as good at drive-blocking as we are at pass-blocking. It also fits the style of our running backs much better to run off of the draws instead of the smash-mouth style we're trying to employ. Our best runs came off of runs up the middle where the oline used pass-block techniques. 2. The d-line just isn't getting much pressure up front on passing downs. This has been a problem since game 1. There have been countless obvious passing downs, but we simply aren't getting that much pressure with the front 3/4. Our sacks have come mostly on blitzes (Rhodes, Hobson). It shows through near the end of the game when teams have a tendency to come back. It's also bad because we can get exposed on the blitzes as we did on the first two plays by buffalo. We brought 5 each time and both times, the blitzes were picked up and they got huge gains. 3. Hate to single out a few guys, but Vilma and Robertson didn't show me too much this game. Vilma missed a few tackles and Robertson got pushed around too many times on those Buffalo runs up the middle.
A trap-and-draw type rushing attack has it's vulnerabilities also. Especially with turnovers, due to the high percentage of plays that wind up with a defensive player (usually a linebacker or safety) hitting the rusher with a running start. The Jets are playing a very low turnover game at this point and that's one of the main reasons they're 2-1.
That's true. I didn't really think about that. However, there are ways to negate that advantage by running a bit of play-action off of it. Run blitzes absolutely stink against play-action and we can get some huge plays off of those. I'd like to see at least a few more of those runs that seemed so successful against Buffalo.
