Carl Banks was pretty brutal on Lito Sheppard, repeatedly calling him "lazy" and unable to cover the receiver without putting his hands on him. It's hard to argue with Banks when you're watching it on tape though. I only hope Sheppard gets wind of those comments and watches the film of himself. Either that or Rex Ryan needs to sit him down and make him watch and listen to Carl Bank's brutal insults. Maybe that would be enough motivation to rethink how he covers his man.
Still seems like we can NEVER get two good CBs at the same time. It opens up a huge hole and keeps the D from getting off the field. If the Giants can abuse him with whoever the hell they had at WR, what's Brady and Chad going to do twice each? I thought I was watching David Barrett again.
Yuor right on that. I'm watching the replay on NFL network now and Eli does not even look over that way at all. Lito has to keep his hands down though. That was the most glaring problem from the first quarter.
Using the players we have i think the only way we can avoid this is by keeping all our CB opposite to Revis fresh. This means sharing time between Sheppard, Strickland, Lowery and posibly Carroll who didn't look bad tonigt. This way the QB cannot get used to the way they play.
Excellent suggestion. After what Ryan saw last night he's got to be thinking the same thing and even more. Our #2 is going to be picked on constantly.
The first unit D looked very vanilla in the blitzing. I doubt it'll stay that way once the regular season starts. Not having Pace around is really going to hurt the D for the first 4 games though... Also not freaking out about Lito... he was beyond awful yesterday but one game doesn't make a bust.
to be honest, i don't think Rex was throwing in many blitzes because he didn't want to give anything away. No point in showing your hand in preseason.
Lito will be fine. Last year he was benched because he was bitching and complaining plus they added Asante Samuel who, no disrespect to Lito, is a superior CB. He barely played last year and this is the 3rd preseason game not week 10. Lito is EASILY the 2nd best CB on this team. Whether that's saying a lot or not is irrelevant. I never want him rotating with Lowery who can't hold his jockstrap in man coverage. Lito will give up plays here and there but will also get his hands on the ball and pick off some passes. He's extremely dangerous with the ball after a INT. His style and skill set is the perfect complement to Revis because he is a playmaking CB. In his last 65 games played as a starter, he has 17 INTs including 3 returned for TDs, 65 pass deflections and a couple of sacks and forced fumbles. There is NO SUCH THING has having 2 SHUT DOWN CBs on the SAME team. Be happy we have one because there are a number of teams without one.
Lito Sheppards technique is very disturbing. In addition to using his hands and arms too much to check the receiver, he is turning his back on the receiver. Instead of changing direction in response to a receivers move by rotating his hips he is using a spin move. If he happens to spin into the receiver it works great. But more often it does not and the spin just creates separation for the receiver. Lito also made this spin move at least once while coming up on run support. Needless to say the running back just blew by him. The guy did make some nice plays during the game because he looks to be a good athlete. But if he doesn't shape up his technique opposing offenses will continue to make a lot of yardard by picking on him.
I disagree with your point on Lowery, I think Lowery has been very good in coverage and seems to be developing into a future shutdown corner. He's not as athletic as Revis but he seems to have great field awareness and is good at draping the wide receiver without interfering like Sheppard did multiple times yesterday. If we see more games out of Sheppard like yesterdays, I hope Lowery gets promoted.
Cornerback is the most demanding position in terms of athleticism. Lowery has poor man to man skills due to the fact that he is slow like say Aaron Beasley and Donnie Abraham. He is built to be a Cover 2 CB due to his solid tackling, ball skills, and lack of pure speed and recovery speed. He's agile but is not quick nor is he fast. He's a 4th round draft pick and unlike other positions, at CB you pay for what you get. Almost every single good CB in the NFL are 1st round picks or early 2nd round picks because they are much more athletic than 2nd day picks at there position. It's VERY rare to have a 2nd day pick become a good starting CB let alone a shut down CB, a term that gets thrown around way too much when there are maybe 5 in the entire NFL if that.
I hope he stops hanging out with Ahmad Caroll, he maybe picking up some habits, I think he will be alright, I think playing opposite of a shut down corner would be tough and we may need to platoon so that the #2 isn't continually tired
First, Lowery doesn't need to be a #1, he just needs to be a very good #2. Second, for every first day pick CB that turns out to be great, there are many more that fail miserably. Draft slotting is not indicative of a player's talent at any position, this has been proven thoroughly throughout the years. Lowery will be just fine at cornerback.
Lowery can't be a good #2 because he doesn't have the necessary ability to become a good NFL CB in a man to man scheme. I agree that where a player is drafted has no indication on how good he will be like Tom Brady, Shannon Sharpe, etc but I would say based on past draft classes that Cornerback is the ONLY proven position that goes against the rule and is the exception. There have been ONLY 2 starting quality CBs drafted on the 2nd day in the past 10 years. 1998 Deshea Townsend of the Steelers and in 2003 Asante Samuel. But I did find David Barrett on the 2nd day lol.
Also Cortland Finnegan my bad missed 1 so make that 3 the past 10 years. A little FYI we chose Drew Coleman at 189 and the Titans got Finnegan at 215... AHHHHHHH lol the draft is such a crapshoot.
Sheppard used to be a good player. When we heard about his problems in Philly, the question was whether he had merely been supplanted by a superior player, or in fact had dropped off significantly in terms of his play. A player of his experience imo should not be having significant difficulty fitting into the Jets system. I fear his poor play tends to indicate more that Philly let him go because they thought he has dropped off a great deal.
aye Lito's performance in that game scared the shit out of me. He looked worse than Lowery. Actually he reminded me a lot of Batman Carroll. That's not a good thing at all.
I thought this was going to be about a trucking convoy and being able to communicate at Johnny's Truck Stop.
