Claim #8 Yup. Jets O could not stay on the field. Jets D could not stay off it. Sanchez was an absolute disaster Claim score: Yup.
Claim #9: Claim score: Eh. Was not the defense's best game by a longshot. This loss also wasn't the defense's fault. Chicago's 5 TDs had the following starting field positions: NYJ 45, CHI 36, NYJ 40, NYJ 32, NYJ 49 A Holmes fumble, a turnover on downs and a nice Hester return made life for Cutler's offense pretty darn easy. But they converted and the D didn't get badly needed stops.
good STs plays happen, we got the safety b/c of a good STs play. mark was outstanding that day, the #s don't show it. This game was on NFL network recently and he was outstanding. A few penalties hurt us and a couple of bad plays by others but he more than did his job. up 7-0, allow 87 yd drive to tie it, Pitt converted on 3rd and 10 and 3rd and 17. we immediately reclaim lead w/ FG. next possession we let Pitt tie it up right before the half. Pitt goes 74 yds w/ opening possession of 3rd qtr to take 17-10 lead. we come right back and tie it. we then get fortunate w/ a drop and hold Pitt, kick FG to take lead. Ben fumbles to set up 3rd and 19 and we almost allow Pitt to convert but they kick on 4th and 3. we hold ball over 4 mins and pin Pitt deep. D gets safety when Pitt doesn't block Jason taylor. O fails to end game, sets up Pitt's O at their 8. we allow Pitt to convert 3rd and 24 and TWO 3rd and 10s before drive dries at NYJ 10. we shouldn't have had to sweat that out if D can stop a 3rd and 24. "Dominant" D's don't allow their teams to swat in that spot.
we allowed Chi to score 38, I don't care if their possessions started at the NYJ 10, NYJ 20, NYJ 6, NYJ 25, NYJ 30. we shouldn't allow Chi to score 38. we could have at least held them to some FGs, right? Again, their O gets their share even putting up 34 pts but we are discussing the D and allowing 38 pts you will lose 99 out of 100 times.
This is what scares me. The Sanchez defense of 2010 is starting to sound like the Tebow defense of 2011. Sanchez played well in 2010 but it gets overrated with how badly his 2009 and 2012 looked. Some of these arguments sound like the good ol Tebow fans from last year would spew "all he does is win". What's funny is that this is incorrect, because our RBs were ranked #11 and #15 that year. So the Brad Smith accumulation does not affect them. On top of that, they are the 2nd highest combo RBs on the list. So logically, the running backs contributed greatly to the running game success and 6% of the season did not magically vault the Jets running game from mediocre to top 5. http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/rb2010 Why leave out comp %, turnovers, passes attempted, passes completed, etc etc? This vs the Championship game against Pitt. The Jets defense netted 15 total points in both the championship game and the December game. The main difference, 0 turnovers in the December, in the Champ game Pitt had 2 turnovers where we scored 0 points (3 for 2 but I learned a safety does not equal a turnvoer interestingly enough), and the Jets had 1 turnover for 7 Pitt points.
So are you claiming our D wasn't dominant in 2010 or are you claiming the offense, specifically the passing offense, performed better than the D in 2010?
There's no such thing as better/best, because there's no context. In anything. In fact, we should just remove the comparative and superlative forms of "good" from language. You can't compare things without context.
Claim #10 Claim score: Every Sanchez supporter's greatest misconception. Pittsburgh opens up with a long scoring drive, 7-0. Despite 2 defensive penalties on Pitt, the Jets offense only travels 29 yards and we punt. Following Pittsburgh drive gets extended by a garbage late hit call on Eric Smith, but the D bails him out with a 4th and 1 stand/pick. Jets respond with an end around for -4, a false start, a 7 yard completion, an incompletion, and a 29 yard shank. A 3 play drive for negative 2 yards. Pittsburgh gets the ball only 27 yards from where NYJ started possession. Jets D bends but does not break, goalline stand. FG. 10-0. Play count right now is 31-10 in favor of Pitt. Jets offense responds with... you guessed it, a three and out. 3 yard run. Incomplete. Incomplete. 33 yard punt, 10 yard return. Again, the Jets offense/special teams only moves the ball 36 yards away from where their possession started, and kills less than 1 minute. Plays are now 31-13 and the Jets's D has to go back out there. Pittsburgh comfortably marches down field for a touchdown in 4 minutes. 17-0. With 2 minutes left in the first half, that's the end of Pittsburgh's scoring day. The Jets offense responds with, you guessed it, a 3 and out. Except this one, after a sack and incompletion, is capped off with a sack-fumble touchdown. Sanchez decides to pump fake in the face of pressure, and gets stripped. 24-0. With one less touchdown on the board, the Jets win this game. Jets get a nice little tidy late drive to throw a field goal on the board. Sanchez 45yd TD to Holmes: 24-10 Pitt held to 3 and out. Westerman's overactive arm nets us a roughing the kicker. Defense gets the stop again with an interception. Jets offense responds with a three yard 3 and out. Steelers offense only nets 13 yards as Big Ben gets sacked twice. Jets respond with a massive 17 play 80 yard drive that gets shut down at the 1. Jets D bails them out with the safety. 24-12. We never have a chance without the play. Jets offense takes advantage of the field position from the safety, scores to make it 24-19. Despite pitching a shutout for 32 minutes, and generating an interception and a safety, the Jets defense gets blamed for the loss and killing the rally, because they give up two late first down passes. ----------------------- Everyone's so quick to talk about Sanchez's big rally to almost save the game only to come up short, and yet: Given the fumble, the Jets offense only net 10 points. Given the safety, the Jets D only net 15 points allowed. On the road. In the playoffs. Yes there were some bad drives early, but the D was put in a bad spot in the first half by a completely useless offense, and Sanchez's fumble, not the lack of defensive performance, ultimately cost the Jets this game.
Did I ever say Sanchez doesn't deserve some of the blame? He does, along with the Offense, but the D clearly blew that game. The D would have never had a chance to get that Safety if not for the Offense. Your meaningless #s don't show anything. Seriously though, great post.
JUNC's "not a dominant defense" argument and kiliing them for not getting late stops would make more sense if this discussion was taking place in 1993. The problem is, every single rule in the current game is geared toward increasing scoring and helping the offense ... Particularly the passing game ... which btw JUNC, becomes much more prevalent when your protecting a lead in the last 2 minutes, when the opposition is running four plays instead of three, and 90% of them are passing plays. It's not surprising we give up late scores because we have no pass rush to combat that extra down, and this is the biggest problem I have with Rex. He's built us a 58 minute defense ... And yes, that's been a problem. But with that said, the fact still remains that each unit has a simple job to do. The offense is supposed to score as many points as possible. The defense is supposed to surrender as few points as possible. They all count the same JUNC. It doesn't matter if they come in minute #1 or Minute #60. Just hold the opposition to the fewest points you can and score as many as you can. Anyone who's watched the Jets the last 4 years would have to be crazy to make the argument that the offense has been better at doing their job than the defense. You love to use "context". Well, in the context of playing by today's rules our offense, and more specifically our QB, has been an utter embarassment. When your passing yardage is consistently in the bottom 10, your completion percentage is consistenly in the bottome 10, your QB is consistently in the bottom 10 and your pass defense (despite these generous passing rlues)is consistently in the top 10, the problem on the team isn't the defense. The only reason to be a "ground and pound" offense in the NFL these days is if your QB can't fucking play. When we tried to open things up in 2011 Sanchez shit the bed so badly the Jets panicked into bringing in Sparano and Tebow ... Just to try to avoid passing the damn ball in 2012. A completely ridiculous strategy, but one we were scared into because our QB play was so substandard. There's no home for a Mark Sanchez in the 2013 NFL. You don't pick a guy like that to run your offense. You get stuck with him and try to deal with it if you have to. Hopefully we won't have to any more. For the record ... I was screaming at Rex to go for 2 to give us a 9 point lead at the end of the 2010 game in Miami. There was no doubt in my mind they were going to go right down the field against our exhausted defense. Yeah we won by the skin of our teeth, but I'll go to my grave saying there's no way you kick the damn extra point in that situation.
I still consider Sanchez's fumble a forward pass. Obviously the offense came out flat, as did the defense. I don't know if you are trying to blame the offense more than the defense, but I have to completely disagree because all that matters is the end. The offense stepped up, was on a roll, and the defense blew it. I don't see how that can be denied.
http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-cant-miss-plays/09000d5d81ddf158/Gay-returns-Sanchez-fumble-for-TD This is the first time I have looked at it in 2 years, and I still say it is really close. If it was called a forward pass, they would not be able to overturn it either. That close........
QB A had the better game. QB B's TEAM had a better game. Again Junc, Wins are a TEAM stat, not a QB Stat.
Yo mister "know it all superfan" you do realize that it's Snaps and not TOP that makes the difference between a tired Defense and a rest defense. TOP matters in controlling the game, but snaps determine how worn down a defense gets. But lets assume, for a moment, that it is TOP and not snaps. You are aware that it was the fact that the Jets had 210 completions in 2009 vs 607 rushing attempts. in 2010 it was 288 completions vs 534 Rushing attempts. You are aware that the running game therefore took up A LOT MORE TIME than the passing game, even under todays rules. You are aware that the defense gave up an even lower completion percentage than the Jets offense, a very difficult feat to accomplish given Sanchez's 54-55% completion rate, faced more pass plays than the Jets ran and faced fewer rush attempts than the Jets ran...right? so given those two facts why did the Jets control the ball? Because of Sanchez? NO, because of a dominiate run first team and a defense that shut down other teams offenses. Why do snaps matter more than a 4 minute or so spread in TOP? Every snap defenses get banged up, bruised etc. But that's only part of it. It's better to have 4 snaps of defense over 2 minutes than 10 snaps of defense over 4 minutes. But with all the 3 and outs the offense had the defense seldom had more than 3 plays off in a game. That makes a HUGE difference in how tired a defense gets. Not a 3 minute TOP difference over 60 minutes.
And it wouldn't have happened 'cept for that patented Sanchez's dumb pump fake. There was no reason to pump fake in that situation...but Sancho thinks it looks cool.
I was hoping that this thread would get to 1,000 pages by opening day. Sancho's shoulder injury slowed it way down. Damn Sanchez...he even managed to fuck up the thread about him fucking up.
Take last season. Patriots averaged 30 seconds more than Jets in terms of ToP. Pats played the most snaps by about 30+ plays more than 2nd team, Detroit Lions. But then again, ToP is a meaningless stat. Real fan will watch the game and find its true meaning other way.
Because the offense was not on a roll. The offense scored, took an INT from Big Ben and punted, drove for 7-8 minutes and scored 0 points at 1st and GL from the 2, and then scored 7 (if we use the illogical argument that the defense wasn't good in the 2nd half and Pitt got 1st downs/scored when they wanted to, then I will spin that illogical argument right back and say Pitt let us score and got stops when they wanted to). The defense went stop, stop, stop, first down and loss. Oh when they were given the task of getting one more stop for the offense (after doing so for every drive in the 2nd half including scoring 2 points) they were still down in the game. It wasn't give up a 1st down and lose, it was give up a 1st down and have shot at potentially winning the game. What happened was both units came out flat in the 1st half and we didn't get that bump from ST play. That meant in the 2nd half we needed perfection from both sides in the 2nd half. The defense did so until the final drive and then could not be perfect. The offense was doing solid until that 7-8 minute drive killed clock and got 0 points. Both sides ended up having crucial mistakes, and I think the offense is more to blame because at the end of the day, the defense let up a net 15 points, the same amount of points they let up in the first Pitt game. You can disagree, and I can see why, but I don't think arguing that the offense was on roll in the 2nd half is the right way to do it. I just see the offense letting the team down. They could have cut it to one posesssion with 7-8 minutes left in the game, instead they did it with 3 minutes left in the game. The defense messed up but the offense had it's own screwups in the 2nd half too. EDIT: I don't think all that matters is the end because the offense screwed up big time but throwing away 14 points (7 via "Fumble", 7 via nothing at the goal line). It's hard to win games when you give the other teams points. Also, 100% agree, I thought Sanchez's fumble was an incomplete pass. Still think so to this day.