http://www.nj.com/jets/index.ssf/2009/10/calvin_pace_admits_ny_jets_hav.html Calvin Pace Admits NY Jets Have To Find A Way To Stop Dolphins' Wildcat Offense By Colin Stephenson/The Star-Ledger October 26, 2009, 9:58PM Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown looks to throw during a Wildcat play against the Jets as Jets linebacker Calvin Pace and safety Kerry Rhodes try to defend.Calvin Pace?s first look at the Miami Dolphins? famed Wildcat offense two weeks ago didn?t turn out so well for the linebacker and the Jets. The Dolphins used the formation to ram the ball down the Jets? throats and eventually scored the winning touchdown out of the Wildcat in Miami?s 31-27 victory on Monday Night Football on Oct. 12. Following that game, Pace, who was playing his first game of the season after missing the first four games due to an NFL suspension, referred to the Wildcat as ?nonsense? and ?crap.? ?I?m going to be honest, I can?t respect that stuff. All that ?Wildcat,?? Pace said after the loss. ?Because we?re in the NFL, man. If you?re out there running that nonsense, it?s crap. They got us today but we?ll see them again and we?ll have something for them. I guess you have to give them credit but the defense lost the game.? Pace will get a second look at the Wildcat on Sunday, when the Dolphins come to Giants Stadium in the Jets? final game before their bye. And while Pace backed off his initial comment a couple days after the first game, the damage was done, as far as the Dolphins were concerned. ?We ?nonsensed? (them) all the way up and down the field,? Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder said. ?Wildcat is an offensive formation. They have thousands of plays on film about it. Go stop it.? Pace, who had three sacks and two forced fumbles Sunday in the Jets? 38-0 victory over the Raiders in Oakland, Calif., didn?t want to revisit his inflammatory words about the Dolphins? pet formation Monday, and he admitted Crowder has a point. ?I?m not doing any talking about what I said earlier,? Pace said via conference call. ?I said it; I meant it. But I really feel like what Channing Crowder said, about, ?If you don?t like it, stop it,? he was true. That was a true comment. We don?t like it, we?ve got to go out there and stop it. And that?s what we have to do.? Pace also groused about Dolphins quarterback Chad Henne, who threw for 241 yards and two touchdowns on 20-of-26 passing. Pace called him ?a clown quarterback? after the game. ?I think their running game, and their ability to establish that, helped him,? Pace said of Henne, who replaced the injured Chad Pennington. ?Any time you?ve got two backs getting 5, 6 yards here and there, and they?re doing that, and you have a quarterback where he?s just got to make smart throws, it?s making his job easier. "Like I said the past couple weeks, we have to get to a situation where we?re making it third-and-9, third-and-10, where Henne has to beat us, instead of just giving him a quick checkdown where a guy can just fall for it for a first down. That?s really going to have to be our main focus for the week, to eliminate the running game, and then make Chad Henne go out there and try to pick us apart.? So, first things first for the Jets: Plainly and simple, they need to find a way to stop the Wildcat. ?There are a lot of things that go on in that backfield and you have to be very disciplined,? cornerback Darrelle Revis said. ?We put a lot of things into the game plan that we thought were going to destroy the Wildcat (in the first game). Obviously, it didn?t.? The Dolphins ran for 153 yards that night, 102 coming on 17 rushes from the Wildcat. Running backs Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams ran for a combined 142 yards and two touchdowns, both by Brown, including the game-winning 2-yarder with 6 seconds left in the game. Jets coach Rex Ryan, perhaps uncharacteristically, seemed determined to hold his tongue as far as saying anything controversial about Miami and the Wildcat. ?Man, I don?t know ? that Wildcat is something else. We?ll see,? Ryan said. ?I mean, that?s an excellent scheme, and I said that before we played them. Shoot, I wouldn?t be surprised if they do it every snap. I might want to do it every snap, if I was them, because they have that much success with it.?
In Rex's PC and his spot on 1050 Rex seems to be calling out the Dolphins and daring them to run it without saying it. Seems like he's goading them into it: "I don't know. That Wildcat is something else. We'll see. They're coming here. We're hosting them at our place, so we'll see. That's an excellent scheme and I said that before we played them. I wouldn't be surprised if they do it every snap. I might want to do it every snap if I was them because they had that much success with it" He said something along these lines multiple times on the Kay show. Probably about 3 or 4 times saying they'd be crazy not to run it every time. Rex definitely has something up his sleeve for this one.
Certainly sounds that way, and God I hope he does. It would be great if we stomped out the Wild Cat for good because they were so embarrassed. At least I can dream until Sunday!!
Okay??? Do you need help, just ask- Here is step 2- Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity, especially Revis Christ. I sincerely hope the Wild Cat gets busted and the Phins have to rely on Henne, that would be a pretty sight for Jet fans.
well its good that pace thinks they need to stop it. maybe thats why they couldn't stop it the first time. i am much more intrigued by what rex has to say. if he has something ready to shut it down this time my man love for rex will go back to preseason levels.
We have to remember the game was very close... 31-27 isn't exactly a blowout. After the game, in one of the interviews (can't remember who said it), one of our defensive guys said something like, "Next time we have to 'stay home' and play solid football." I took that statement to mean two things... first, I think our DEF was running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to chase down wherever they thought the ball was moving to. By not "staying home" the Dolfags were able to get the yardage by trickery rather than ground-pounding. At least, that's what I think he meant (not staying in position because we were caught off guard so often). Secondly, I think what he meant by "solid football" were a lot of mistackles and near misses. Not taking anything away from Ronnie Brown or Ricky Williams, who are both solid, ground-pounding guys, but I think we could handle those guys in a conventional run scheme. It's when they break loose with the other shit that had us confused... confused enough to lose a game 31-27 that we might have otherwise won. This time around (hopefully) they've seen enough film of the Wildcat to get a better handle on it. It won't hurt to take care of business on the tackling also.
My thinking is he already had. I wonder if the phins coaching staff through film study saw what Baltimore keyed on in previous plans, and used a certain amount of change to dupe the Jets into bad reads. Remember prior to playing the Jets, they had not passed out of the formation either, but the first Wildcat play from scrimmage was a 20+ yard pass play... Also as the above poster pointed out, this was our game to lose late, and we lost it primarily because the defense wore out in the 4th quarter. It won't be 80+ degrees at game time here.
i really hope the crowd shows up to this game. one thing i noticed about the dolphins offense the last time we played was that it is designed to get ten yards every 3 plays. sure they broke a few nice plays on the wildcat but that was a lot of missed tackles. for the most part the dolphins were getting just enough for a first down on third down all night. if the crowd is into it and helps force some penalties on the fins it will severely limit their offense.
Rewatching the games shows that is exactly what happened. Gap assignments were missed or ignored alot and we tackled very poorly against them, partly because we over persued on a lot of plays. One thing I would love to see. The Linebackers play a bit closer to the line. 6 yards off against the wild cat seems silly in 4 LBer sets. Croud the line and hold your gap down.
The Saints did some things to help contain some runs. We'll add to that and further help contain it some, but still not stop it. Then the Fishes go to NE and Belichick adds to that and will eventually find a way to contain it. The rest of the league notices and copycats the defensive scheme. In about 3-4 weeks, I expect the WC to lose it's effectiveness and Henne will be on full display to beat teams. Once they lose the ability to gain 6-7 yds on the ground out of the WC, that team is done.
"Staying home" was a key to the Saints stifling of the WC in the 2nd half of the Saints/Phins game. Corner backs, outside linebackers and DE's need to be much more disciplined in shutting down their defined lanes until the ball carrier has broken the line of scrimmage.
Blitzing was not the reason why the Wildcat bullshit worked against us the first game, it's because of the poor tackling. We will win this game and show everyone else in the league how to stop the wildcat. And watchout, we now have the Hawkeye!
A couple of things: Pace is playing on a whole other level since that first game back. And Jenkins in gone, but we're healthier at the DB position too. In this second outing we won't be caught off guard and have the advantage of seeing those plays on film. Henne was a key factor in the loss as well, IMO. He played so well I have to ask myself if he was playing over his head and just getting lucky with some of those unbelievably perfect throws or if this is the real Chad Henne. I guess we'll find out Sunday, but to duplicate that kind of accuracy he's going to have to have an almost perfect game again. The trick will be to keep him off the field, and the Wildcat too. To do this we have to establish command of the clock and impose our will on them by 3rd down conversions. Green got a good tune-up on Sunday in a perfect matchup for us when we needed it most. I expect the offense to click even better now with each passing week, as guys like Greene and Edwards jell into the offense. We can win this game by controlling the clock and scoring points on mostly every drive. If we do that, the Wildcat is neutralized.
i think henne was just in the zone that game. after the game he talked about how he had made a few throws he hadn't completed all week in practice. i don't think he will be nearly as accurate this time around. he should also be suffering from what we watched sanchez suffer through the last few games. teams have some tape on him in real games now and are finding ways to get him to make mistakes.
