Last year, our team went 8-8. We finished the year with a record that many "analysts" and "sportswriters" thought we would never come near. We had a rookie QB and a depth chart that made flag football teams look good, but let's focus on the secondary here. This board has been going nuts over the lack of talent or depth at the cornerback position. Now we can all argue until we are blue in the face about how important corners really are if you have a dominant defensive line, but let's take a look at those corners and disregard the defensive line for now. In 2013, last year, our cornerback depth chart was as follows: Antonio Cromartie, Dee Milliner, Kyle Wilson, Isaiah Trufant, and Ellis Lankster. Here are the cornerback rankings of 2013, according to nfl.com and Bleacher Report. 100 players were ranked. Only those who played over a certain number of snaps were used. These are not the rankings of Pro Football Focus. A team of scouting analysts and football insiders reviewed months of film to come up with the numbers. These rankings judged Cornerbacks on their coverage ability, run defense, tackling ability, and decision making. These rankings are obviously not the end all be all, but using them, you can get a sample of what we had: Isaiah Trufant - Unranked Ellis Lankster - Unranked Dee Milliner - Ranked 100th Antonio Cromartie - Ranked 96th Kyle Wilson - Ranked 72nd Our starting corners had an average ranking of 89. We had one of the worst ranking at the cornerback position in 2013. Now, let's look at the teams we beat that year: Bucs, Bills, Falcons, Patriots, Saints, Raiders, Browns, and Dolphins. 8 wins. Of those 8 wins, the ones I want to put under a microscope are the Falcons, Patriots, and Saints. In 2013, Matt Ryan, QB of the Falcons, finished the year with 4500 yards, 26 TD, and a 89.6 rating. Against us, he threw for 319 yards, 2 tds, and finished with a 110 rating. Tom Brady, QB of the Patriots, finished the year with 4300 yards, 25 TD, and a 87.3 rating. Against us, both the game we won and the game we lost by a field goal, he threw for a combined 413 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, and a rating of 62.25. Drew Brees, QB of the Saints, finished the year with 5100 yards, 39 TD, and a rating of 104.7. Against us, he threw for 382 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT, and finished with a 79 rating. These are three of the top quarterbacks in this league and they finished with a combined 1,114 yards, 5 TD, 3 INT, and a combined rating of 83.75 in 4 games, considering Brady played us twice. Now, these stats were helped tremendously by the front 7 but let's not kid ourselves and think that the front 7 won't be even better this year. We have improved the safety position, improved the front 7 with more experience, and have either remained constant at corner or gotten better. Not much worse you can go compared to last year. The sky is not falling. If Dee Milliner comes back healthy the way he finished last season, our cornerback position will be in a better place than it was last season. Pair that with an improved safety core and more experience on the front line and we are in good shape. We won 8 games last year, three against top quarterbacks, with an abysmal cornerback performance. I can't see us doing worse.
I can definitely see us doing worse, much worse. But hopefully you are right. I guess we will find out soon enough.
Of course there's a possibility of us doing worse. That's always a possibility, but at the same time, it's gonna be very hard to be worse than what we were last year, as long as Milliner comes back healthy. You also have to take into account our offense this year. It seems we can score much easier than we did last year. If our offense scores more, it takes pressure off the defense.
Hey, optimism! I liked Cro but his play last year was awful. I have no doubt walls can do at least as well, and once milliner comes back he's obviously going to be better. How much better? We don't really know, but he will be better than last year. And don't forget we have Pryor now too. Ed reed is a hall of famer but he was past his prime.
Yes, absolutely. I slightly involved the safety position, but I was gearing it more towards the Cornerbacks. We have an improved safety group, a more experienced line, and a much improved offense. Everything that can help alleviate pressure from the corners.
I don't disagree. I think our offense will be much improved this year, maybe not even necessarily scoring all that often but at least not giving excellent field position to our opponent. Even with a really good defense it's hard for them to shut someone down if they are getting the ball near our territory. I also think our pass rush will be better than anticipated and love the Pryor pick. I'm just not convinced that with such an obvious weakness that teams won't figure out how to exploit it. If they know we have such terrible corners but a good pass rush all they need to do is get some good blocking to keep the pocket alive and wait for one of their WRs to burn one of our crappy CBs. If they have good TE/RB blocking we could be in trouble, frequently.
This is where Rex Ryan comes in and this is why I am so glad he's our coach. Let them try and exploit it. I fully trust in Rex and his ability to scheme around it
The secondary isn't as bad as people think because people don't remember exactly how bad the secondary was last year. Adding Calvin Pryor and getting the improved Milliner back from injury will be enough for an improved unit. That doesn't even take into account the growth of Antonio Allen as a legitimate option to defend against tight ends and an inevitable cornerback addition.
Yep. People add Cromartie into the mix and part of the thought process is that he was a good CB. Last year he just blew chunks. The odds are that whoever replaces him this year plays better even if they play badly. Having a playmaker in the middle of the defense is always a big plus. The Jets had a playmaker for 1 season with LaRon Landry but his coverage ability was suspect. Pryor has a chance to be the best safety the Jets have put on the field since Kerry Rhodes early years when he was a true playmaker back there.
the thing about our d-line is the versatility. mo-rich and coples can all line up just about anywhere, so rex will be able to move players around to change looks and confuse blocking schemes. as long we have sure tacklers on the back end to keep short passes from becoming long passes the d will be fine. force short passes and try to force the qb to make unforced errors by getting impatient. the only difference from last years cb's to this years cb's is we won't be surprised when we get shit play from cromarties spot. which is good, rex can plan for that in advance
Falco, very nice write up, good job. I very much agree that the sky isn't falling and in addition to CB corp being not as bad as advertised, the pass rush would mask the weakness even further. My favorite thing to ask my Giants friends who listen to too much ESPN is to challenge them to name one CB from their SB winning teams, either 07 or 11. At most they can name one, and it's rare. That said... You picked 3 teams to illustrate your point. Two of those are pretty bad examples. NE operated with severely depleted receiving corp and Falcons just stank last year. So while I agree with your premise, the way you chose to go about supporting it is flawed.
Of course it's not as bad as people say, but the media has to write about something. Likewise I'm sick about hearing how tough our opening schedule is. The season can't get here soon enough.
I have to disagree with you to an extent. I chose those three teams because those three teams were the teams with three of the best QB's in this league. While their receiving corp may have been lesser than it should have been, it was still very productive. Atlanta got 1,000+ yards from Harry Douglas while also getting huge yards from Tony Gonzalez. New England got 1,000+ yards from Julian Edelman while also getting solid production from Danny Amendola. New Orleans got 1,000+ yards from Jimmy Graham while also getting close to 1,000 from Maques Colston and a good amount from Kenny Stills. If you go by offensive rankings of 2013, you can see the impact as well. New England was ranked 3rd in the league. New Orleans was ranked 10th and Atlanta was ranked 20th. Our secondary held down 2 of the top 10 offensive units last year and beat them.
If Dee Milliner can play at a respectable level, then the Jets have improved right off the bat. Last year Cromartie was below average, and Milliner was awful. If Pryor can safety well to it would take a lot of pressure off the CBs. Any CB in the league would tell ya that playing with good safeties helps there game a lot. (Look at Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas is the heat of that secondary)
I dont put too much stock into rankings. Especially ones that say Wilson was our best CB last season. But overall I agree with this thread. Our secondary was bad last year. No other way to put it. But because we had a name guy in Cro as our number 1 people weren't panicky. Now Week 1 starters of Allen and Walls isnt great but its not the worst thing either. Hopefully Milliner is back by Week 3. If Geno does his thing and the offense puts up on average about 24 points per game then there is no doubt in my mind we'll do enough on D to make those leads hold up. Its an offensive league. If the offense takes advantage of that we have zero worries. If the offense can only put up 14-17 PPG and every TD the D gives up feels like a dagger then its a different story. But notice how people arent saying anything about teams like the Packers , Saints and Broncos having below average CB's. There's a good reason for that.
Falco , I agree with your assessment...always good to have a positive post among the 'sky is falling' bunch here. I make it a point not to create any topics about much of anything, but if I had to , it would be on how much the Jets have vastly improved on their talent in the offence - with CJ and Ivory, along with Decker and Amaro, not to mention Smith with a year of experience, this will keep the defense OFF the field more so , enough to prevent the CBs from getting burnt as often as 2013--- of course there will be a catch 22 - Jets scoring more points will entice the opposition to throw more in late game situations. But, I'd take my chances.
