Jets look for answers on 'D' BY RICH CIMINI DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER Overshadowed by the magnitude of Thursday night's 34-31 overtime win over the Patriots was an awful performance by the Jets' defense, which surrendered a season-high 511 total yards. "Obviously, there are some things we need to clean up, and it wasn't all coverage," Eric Mangini said Friday. Mangini and defensive coordinator Bob Sutton had no answer in the second half when Bill Belichick decided to put young QB Matt Cassel in shotgun formation on every play. Running the offense almost exclusively out of no-huddle sets, Cassel passed for 226 of his 400 yards after halftime. Why didn't the Jets adjust? "Short week," LB David Bowens said. "It's hard to prepare for everything that goes into a game. That's something we'll take a look at." It marked the second time in the last four games the Jets had struggled against a shotgun/spread offense. The Chiefs' Tyler Thigpen torched them for 280 yards. Curiously, the Jets blitzed Cassel only five times on 32 pass plays in the second half - all five-man rushes. Mangini said they preferred coverage over pressure because the Patriots are known as blitz-beaters. "They can really make you pay," he said. STILL SUPER: The team still was buzzing about Jerricho Cotchery's one-handed, ball-against-the-helmet catch, a la David Tyree. "Pretty amazing," Mangini said of the 46-yard reception. Cotchery said he received congratulatory calls and texts throughout the day. WHAT A FEELY: With PK Jay Feely riding an 8-for-8 tear on field goals, including the 34-yard game-winner in OT, Mangini said he's in no rush to bring back Mike Nugent and is willing to keep two kickers on the roster....Leon Washington said one of the biggest plays of the game was Kerry Rhodes winning the OT coin toss. Rhodes is on a roll. Prior to that, he had won the opening toss in the previous four road games.... Mangini on whether the win could catapult the team to a special team: "It's special in the context of how we're starting to play."...The Jets scored 24 points in the first half, tied for the most ever against a Belichick-coached team in New England.
"Curiously, the Jets blitzed Cassel only five times on 32 pass plays in the second half - all five-man rushes. Mangini said they preferred coverage over pressure because the Patriots are known as blitz-beaters. " No shit...Mangini says he prefers coverage..problem is we can't cover..that's why Cassel ended up with 400 yards.
Lets not think about the Jets not being able to adjust. Lets simply ignore the fact that Cassel and Thigen torched this defense thru the air because we didn't apply any pressure at all.. Don't worry, be happy...
True...we should have blitzed heavily and let Moss and Welker prove they could beat us...thats probably the best way to attack the Pats. This is why I've chosen to ignore people who make fun of the coaching. They could swear they know what they're doing all day, but really it's all hindsight based BS. The Pats have 5 guys who know the system and have played excellent within it. Moss, Welker, Watson, Faulk, and Gaffney. You think you can blitz and make these guys go away? Really now? We're that good a blitzing team? If we tried to blitz, we would have been burned all night.
Yes, the Patriots are blitz beaters... just like they beat the blitz against the Giants in the Super Bowl... Hello! You play to win the game!!!
until they get a pass rush they will continue to get burned--Playing a 3-4 your OLB are supposed to be your pass rushers, and the jets aren't getting it from Thomas and Pace.
We could have mixed up the coverages, though. This was Madden shit. The same coverage ON EVERY PLAY. So, the Pats ran the same routes ON EVERY PLAY. And thus had the same players open ON EVERY PLAY. See my thread on the deep out for an example. The play calling for both sides was as vanilla as it gets - I would be very surprised if the Jets defense or the Pats offense ran more than six different plays the majority of the game.
And making the offense predictable is a bad thing...how? And those same players were Watson and Gaffney...would you have prefered Moss? Fact is, you guys want to be in your face wowed by...something. I don't even know what. It's really creepy how we can make fun of a gameplan that shut out their best offensive playmaker, but we can't give the coaching credit for laying 24 points early on a team that doesn't give up points...and doesn't give up points early. Not that they were perfect, but if I expected perfectin I'd stick to Madden and not real life football...
It wasn't that we made the Pats' offense predictable. They found things that worked and kept doing them and we never made the adjustment, like the trap play out of the shotgun. Our dline, linebackers and safeties didn't recognize the play once. Our corners and safeties didn't jump the routes once. One would think that when you get beaten the same way so many times you would learn to jump the route or recognize the blocking on a play. Nope, didn't happen. It didn't matter who was running the deep out. They could have had moss do it, too. They just didn't. Both sides were stubborn as hell when it came to the Pats O and the Jets D being on the field, and I think that that is what it really comes down to - Stubbornness.
I disagree whole heartedly. Once we came out of the gate so strong, it was up to the Pats to beat our gameplan on O and D. They failed to slow down our O, and our D effectively took Moss out of the game once again against us.
Once our O started playing conservatively, we were basically just waiting for the Pats to catch up, which they did. Taking Moss out of the game while allowing them to catch up to such a tremendous lead is nothing but an excuse - Buffalo kept Randy Moss fairly quiet as well. Congrats to their defense. They did a tremendous job that game, right? I understand what you're saying, but to me, it's a hollow moral victory. I staunchly believe that focusing on shutting down Moss endangered our chances in the game.
One point begs questioning: As Chicago Bears have proved time and time again, when you fear the opposing offense, the best way to stop them is to not even allow them to step on the field. See how Bears defeated Barry Sanders-led Lions; even Barry couldn't bail them out when he was forced to watch the game all day from the sideline, when Chicago kept the ball for 45 minutes. During the pivotal 3rd quarter, I was left wondering why Jets all of a sudden abandoned the running game. Anybody could see it coming; down by a lot, Patriots were going to come out firing passes. Now, a well-orchestrated, clock-eating drive would certainly kill their momentum and take the crowd out of the game, no? Instead, Jets abandons the run game, that was so effective all night. I just have to scratch my head on that one.
The Jets didn't completely abandon the run game in the 3rd quarter. They liked to run on 1st down with the Pats showing a full run blitz, the Jets not even masking the fact that they were running. Kind of like the Ace RB 8 yd+ fiasco last year.
Moss got over the D anyway several times Cassell just made some poor throws. Fact is we didn't get pressure and we didn't cover over the top worth shit. No doubt we threw everything at the secondary but that wasn't effective either.
I was screaming for the safeties to move up like they did on Edwards for his pick 6 to Elam. Cassel wasn't going to go over the top that much, so his throws were going to be comeback routes. I would have like to see the same defensive scheme that picked off edwards.
It's assinine to play in such a way as to almost lose a game because you fear if you play differently, you may lose a game. The coin toss and BF saved management and our beloved franchise a devastating loss. EM must be one of the most stubborn mules to ever run an NFL club. The only way I support him after this season is if we get a ring. Whoever we bring in next has just as good a chance at winning a coin toss.
