Funny, as I read t his I found myself thinking "isn't the top yardage passer of 2009 sitting at home right now?" Followed by "the Jets are #1 against the pass ing the NFL, so isn't that #3 on his list?" Then I remembered Bill Simmons is a fucking moron.
Not to only score 20+ points but to do so with an offense that doesn't even avg that against bad defense. Since their bye week they have scored 17,18,17,16,23,10,24,17,0 the 23 came against the Lions (32ns D) and the 24 against the Chargers (16th D). If they couldn't score points on the Browns, Chiefs, Raiders how will they do it against the Jets?
Bill Simmons is a Pats homer. He also wrote the most incredible friggin' basketball book known to man. And I HATE basketball because it's stupid. But I got entranced in that damn book in an airport last month. That is all.
Exactly - at every level when everything is on the line and the best is against the best - Defense dominates the speed and tone of the game. These hacks have to fill space. However far we go or don't go - I wouldn't trade defenses with any of the other Playoff teams. :beer:
A great book from the view of an ultra Boston homer. I also picked up that book at an airport, and I was spitting out my vodka within the first 100 pages. I like Simmons' stuff too, so long as it doesn't have to deal with his teams and their direct rivals. That book is unreadable as a Laker or Knick fan.
He has one huge flaw in his argument. The Jets may not throw the ball but that doesn't mean the Jets can't or won't get big plays down the field in the passing game. Yards are up, pass completion % are up and passing TD's are up because teams run a spread and use the pass like teams used to use the run. A run dominated team that can utilize play action can still create big plays down the field in big bunches, particularly if they control the LOS and pull the D up. Obviously the Jets defense is one that is designed to stop the big pass play and has all year. Where I agree with him is that the league has been changed radically to favor the passing game. The biggest change which he doesn't mention that has changed the game from a run and defend game in the playoffs isn't the rule change but the Domes. Of all the games last week the Eagles loss to Dallas probably had the biggest impact on the playoffs. The Eagles are a big play down field team but being a cold weather outdoor team with home field advantage through the second and possibly third round against in all likelyhood an all dome passing team may have been the last best hope of Reid and McNabb to get to a SB. Looking at the AFC the Jets match up well with Cin, NE and Baltimore. In a good weather game in SD or a dome game in Ind hard to see this team winning with it's run and defend style.
Quote: "Revelation No. 3: The most potent force in January and February is the "Nobody Believes In Us" theory. Again and again and again and again. Although we've never really figured out why. Every football team should be motivated in the playoffs, right? My dopey theory: In the age of parity, every contender has roughly the same level of talent. There is no such thing as a juggernaut anymore. Even when the 2003/2004 Patriots rolled off their incredible 33-4 streak, three of their six playoff games (including both Super Bowls) came down to the final two minutes. Throw in the decline of home-field advantage and, more than ever, playoff football hinges on luck, breaks, injuries ? and motivation. The past decade featured two of the most defining "Nobody Believed In Us" games ever played (Super Bowl 36, Super Bowl 42) as well as six teams (2000 Giants, 2001 Pats, 2003 Panthers, 2005 Steelers, 2007 Giants, 2008 Cardinals) that thrived on that mantra. We always think of "Nobody Believed In Us" only working for the winning team, but the bizarro version is equally dangerous. You never want your team to be too pleased with itself (like the 2001 Rams or 2007 Pats) or overconfident for dubious reasons (see Ryan's quote above). Instead of the "Too Many People Believed In Us" theory, I'd name this one after Albert Ganz, the villain in my favorite movie of all time ("48 Hrs."). At the very end, Ganz is shot by Nick Nolte's character, looks down at the wound in disbelief and says, "I can't believe it ? I got shot!" A couple of beats pass, then Nolte shoots him about 370 more times. So long, Ganz. (At least until he came back as Dexter's dad.) But you never want to be rooting for the team that has a Ganz moment: Like Tennessee or Carolina last year, or the Patriots in Super Bowl 42. I can't believe it ? I got shot. Could picking playoff games be as simple as determining the motivators for every matchup? For instance, this week's Bengals-Jets line shifted 1.5 points toward New York, a team that seems curiously overconfident for a team with a rookie QB. Could you see a convincing Cincy victory followed by Bengals players saying things like "The only people who believed in us this week were the people in this locker room" and "They did a lot of yapping this week and we wanted to shut them up"? Absolutely. That's football in the 2010s. A little motivation goes a long way. " -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hmmm, Everybody is saying that the Jets "Backed into the Play-offs" and that we wouldn't be here if the Colts and the Bengals didn't let us win by resting their starters. The media has been pounding us all week and the only person that has said ANYTHING positive is our coach and that's what he focuses on to say that NOBODY respects the Bengals? What a twit.
jixxjr points out a flaw in Simmons' logic--the Jets can play the motivational card, too. It wouldn't surprise me if the Jets staff made a tape of comments made this week about how the Jets were lucky and played it at last night's team meeting.
They said the same thing on NFL blitz. However, they are banking on Dirty turning the ball over for a score.
The only time Simmons ever picks the Jets is when he's trying to execute his vaunted "Reverse Jinx". Ditto for the only time he ever picks against the Pats. In other words, the guy relies more on supersition, voodoo, and semi-relevant pop culture analogies than on any kind of football knowledge. This is the same moron who lost to his wife over the course of an entire season 2 years ago picking NFL games. He's also a worthless racist dirtbag, but that's a discussion for another time.
The argument that defense is not as important as it once was is predicated on a bunch of different developments, all of which are valid: 1. The increase in southern teams and indoor locales have made the weather less of a factor in playoff football in January (used to be December.) If you look at the teams the Jets have to go through to get to the Super Bowl you see both Indy and SD playing in places where the passing game is not at all hindered by seasonal weather. 2. Rules changes have opened up the offenses enough that it's very hard to shut down a high caliber passing attack consistently. Indoor surfaces that are designed to least hinder wide receivers sprinting on patterns exacerbates that effect. It's no accident that the highest flying passing attack lives indoors on artificial turf. 3. In light of the two changes above NFL offenses have shifted to a pass-first attack, even when they play in bad weather conditions as the Patriots do. Note that the Patriots playoff successes have declined since they did this. Maybe what's good for the Peyton and his team is not good for the Brady and his team? For the Jets to get a sizeable advantage out of their current configuration they basically need to play in cold weather and bad conditions. That gives them a real shot in today's game but it probably makes them wicked underdogs against the Chargers, Colts and in the Super Bowl - all of which will be good weather locales. Only two teams in this decade have won the Super Bowl by running significantly more than they passed: the 2005 Steelers and the 2000 Ravens. If the Jets were to win it all this year and Ryan decided to keep the 40 pass/60 run configuration he'd be going against the flow and stubbornly refusing to look at reality. To which I say, bring it on! Especially the winning it all this year part.
You make good points for the shift to Offense as the most important factor in most games. But while trends and focus shift, fundamentals do not. In the playoffs even more than the regular season, stops and turnovers are decisive because there exists little margin for error. That is why defense will still make the difference. That being said even if we can hold opponents to under 15-20 points a game, we have to score 15-20 to win. This is where our QB play will come in. I believe we will win any game in which our turnover ratio is no worst than plus 1 outright. At plus two, it will be a dogfight that can go either way. At plus three, were done. I think this is what our defense brings to the table more than anything else - some margin for error.
We did not win a game this year where we committed more turnovers than the opponent. We did not lose a game where the opponent committed more turnovers than we did. We lost two games (both to Miami) with an even turnover differential. If the Jets turn the ball over today the odds are we're going to lose unless the Bengals turn it over more. If we're even then we're probably slight underdogs. The defense has to force turnovers because Carson Palmer is not going to make mistakes on his own, or not many at least.
I love Simmons, but he's twisting the facts here to suit his purpose. Just because passing offenses have opened up in the regular season does not diminish the value of a clock control offense. Also, he's the latest in a long series of writers to pretend that the Bengals gave last week's game away which is a dubious claim at best.
I actually like reading Simmons' columns. I understand that he is an unabashed Pats fan and that is hard to take, but he is true sports nut and those of us who are also devoted sports fans can identify with his feelings and insights. I enjoy his agony over the loss to the Giants in the SB. I also love reading Greg Easterbrook's TMQ columns on Tuesdays on ESPN.com. If you like sports and football, you have to enjoy these columns. You don't always have to agree with what these guys say, but they both put a lot of effort and thought into the columns and both are written with high sports IQs.
Srsly? If your on drugs, you need to get off them. If your not on drugs, I would suggest you go try some. Thinking simmons is anything close to a good sports writer shows a chemical imbalence somewhere in your brain.
