Someone (not sure if it was you) referenced the Bears-Dolphins game as an "everbody has a bad day" stat. The Bears defense played poorly against arguably (not IMO) the greatest quarterback of all time. Our defense let games slip through their fingers against the mediocre Miami Dolphins, the mediocre Jacksonville Jaguars, and the injury depleted Atlanta Falcons. Our D couldn't close out games against three teams that missed the playoffs. That's what keeps the 2009 Jets from being a great defense. Now, I think we can add a caveat to this argument: if the Jets blank the Bengals, contain the Colts and/or Chargers and dominate the AFC Championship game and the Super Bowl, then yes, we may need to discuss this defense as one of the all-time greats. But the 2009 regular season? Very, very good defense, not great.
no it doesn't, your reliance on statistics as an absolute is what is dumb. let's take baseball. a player has a .300 BA but is considered clutch. in a big game, said player is 3-4 going into his last at bat, or batting .750 already. statistics would say he isn't going to get a hit because he is well above his average. but he gets a hit. that's what is clutch, his ability to perform beyond expectations or statistical analysis, thus the statistics didn't represent his ability to perform in the moment at all. that projects into all other sports accomplishments, from hitting final shots in basketball despite already shooting higher than your average, which statistics would say you should miss to bring your percentage closer to your statistical average, to not stopping opponents at the end of games despite the fact that statistically as a whole you have been great most of the time. see, statistics are fluid, they fluctuate and they don't paint absolute pictures, so championing them as absolutes is a dumb argument. dumb is not grasping that simple concept.
Except no hitter hits .750 in the clutch. None. Most hitters are at most .100 above their normal batting average (most are within .010) which is explained by statistical variance (given the small samples) and not some magical ability to be "clutch". This defense had 6 opportunities to close out games. It did so 50% of the time. All time great defenses did so at about a 60% clip. That's statistical variance, not some magical ability that you seem to allude to. I grasp the concept, you just don't understand that "clutch" doesn't mean all that much. You're grasping at straws, honestly.
So here's the problem with this thinking. The 1985 Bears weren't just a great defense, they were a great TEAM. They won most of their games by double digits. They didn't HAVE to close out their games. Looking at their schedule, they only had to close out one game the entire season and that was Week 9 against the Packers. 1 for 1 isn't a great sample. And as we know, they laid an egg against the Dolphins, so you could argue they were 1 for 2. Fact is, they didn't have to close out 6 games like the Jets defense did. The Jets succeeded in closing out 3 of them. You put the '85 Bears in there an I'd bet they close out 3 or 4. But that's ultimately unknowable we'll never know because THEY NEVER HAD TO. People, why is it so hard to accept that the Jets are one of the best defenses? Great defenses close games at about a 60% clip. We did 50%, that's not bad.
The 2009 Jets defense put up outstanding statistical numbers but in my opinion you're not an "all-time" top defense unless you strike fear into your opponents. I don't think anyone is afraid to play us. I'm sure there were plenty of players who thought twice when they saw that they were playing the 85 Bears or the 2000 Ravens or The Steel Curtain or even the sack exchange. I do belive Rex is on the way to having that type of defense in the coming years but just don't think we are there yet. With Jenkins back and a top edge rusher we'll be much closer to being an intimidating defense.
I'm sure most #1 receivers playing us were like CRAP!!! Heck, most QB's and RB's, too. However, the intimidation factor isn't the same because of our offense. Most knew they could get some picks and have a short field.
This is not a great defense. It has blow leads in the 4th quarter on several occasions. Great defenses don't do that. This is a good defense. Its a good defense that appears to be getting better. But its not an elite defense. Statistics only get you so far.
The offense needs to put points on the board too. I'm not buying this. Easy to blow leads when the rookie throws multiple int. and can't get in the end zone. Its okay, give them some credit, they have the #1 D in the NFL.
Jets had more possession than Atlanta, ffs. 29:36 for the Falcons, 30:24 for the Jets. In Miami it was 26:25 for the Jets and 33:35 for Miami. I think your argument is flawed.
Against Atl our O had it 30:24, Atl had it 29:36 Against Miami our O didn't turn it over, if they got stops against Miami they wouldn't have gotten worn out.
Look, this is a really good defense. However you and I and everybody else in the room knows that if the opposing team gets the ball with less than 5 minutes to go and within a TD the odds are we've lost. That's why it's not a great defense. If we had not given up the late scores this year we'd have gone 11-5 based on how everything else up to that point played out. You cannot excuse allowing Jacksonville to march the length of the field for a winning TD in the last 2 minutes of the game. You cannot excuse leaving Tony Gonzalez undefended in the endzone on 4th and 7 after the defense allowed the Falcons to march down the field to get there. Those were not the acts of a great defense. They're very good. If we're lucky that will be enough this year.
I have to agree with you on this. Our D this year was just a few big plays short of being a really great defense. That said, I'm overjoyed that we have the #1 defense in the league and it looks like it should only improve next season. I have no complaints. However, one can only imagine how much better they might have been this season if our offense had been a little more proficient and didn't put the D in so many tough spots.
Lets wait till after the playoffs before we begin rating our D, lets see if they can do it when it counts.
The answer lies in the next four games... Whether or not the Jets' D is an all-time great will be answered over the next (hopefully) four games. If the D is dominant, shutting down whatever combination of Palmer, Rivers, Manning, Flacco they face, leading this team to victory, only then does the Jets' D deserve such recognition.
I'm getting sick of the same argument over and over. We stopped 50% of these game winning drives. The elite defenses of the past 40 years have a success rate of about 60%. That's pretty close (look at the first page, seriously). Fact is, a lot of these "defensive stops" should have been offensive stops. It's easy to stop the other team if they don't get the ball. It's ridiculous to say this team sucks because they ONLY got 50% of game winning stops when they were needed. If the offense does its part in 4 games, we're 13-3 and nobody questions whether this defense is "clutch". Seriously, people, this is a great defense, it's just paired with a really poor passing offense.
I didn't say a hitter hits .750 in the clutch, I said hypothetically a hitter is hitting .750 for a game (which happens all the time), thus it becomes less likely that he will get a hit the more at bats he has in the game because his average is lower, yet despite that he still gets another a hit, thus the statistics didn't accurately reflect his ability to perform in that situation. being clutch is just the ability to perform in a narrowly defined scenario, such as in a game winning situation or in a big game altogether. statistics can in fact validate that. all you have to do is analyze the statistics of performances that fall within the boundaries of that narrowly defined scenario, identify an average, and then compare specific player performances against the averages to identify whether a player is more successful or less successful than the average in those scenarios. when you are more successful, you are clutch. I don't think anyone would dispute a definition of a clutch defense as being one in which a defense is able to stop an opponent in a one score game at the end of the game, and being clutch is a vital element of being a great defense. and how well did the Jets D do in one score games at the end of games or in the 4th quarter? not very well it seems, considering they gave up three field length game winning drives in the final minutes that ended in go ahead scores in 3 of the Jets seven losses (Miami, Atlanta, Jacksonville), gave up a go ahead score late in the 4th quarter in another (Miami), and an OT loss (Buffalo). to ignore that element is simply dishonest and represents the flaw in statistics that you can manipulate them to reveal whatever you want them to if you have an agenda.
Football Outsiders has NYJ '09 as the 2nd best defense of the last 5 years, behind only PIT '08. They're not Top 5 or 10 all time, but you could probably make a case for Top 25 since the merger.
