Didn't post at all after the game, as it would have been useless emotional screaming and yelling and calling for people's heads, as im sure most here can relate to. so here are my thoughts 24 hours later... The Blame I think most of the blame has to go on the coaching staff. I dont really care who you want to point out... Bowles, Gailey, whomever. But this was a coaching failure. whether the team is coming into the game flying around or taking more of a reserved business like approach... i dont care, but you need to be focused and ready to execute and this team clearly was not ready and focused: -illegal touching penalty -10 men on the field forcing us to call a timeout -offsides on a 4th down these kinds of things are just not acceptable, and those are just a few of many examples. Also, where were the adjustments?! The bills must have ran the same play on first down about 15 times. shotgun inside handoff to the HB off the right side of the line. and like 6 or 7 first downs in a row at one point. i mean after 10 or 12 times we should have been destroying that play in the backfield. it was really predictable. Scapegoats: Revis/Fitz Neither of these guys played particularly well, but honestly i dont think these guys should be getting the blame they have been. I mean, revis got torched, but at some point in the game, where is the coaching to make an adjustment? revis playing 8-10 yards off the ball and in a bail technique on top of it at the snap on most obvious passing downs, with the bills happy to run short routes and take the easy first down yardage. ill blame revis for the first 50 or 60 yards, after that its on the coaching staff to either change how revis plays him, give revis help, or switch who is covering him all together. where is the LB buzzing the short routes? where is revis bumping him with help over the top? i mean at somepoint, change it up... at least on 3rd/4th downs when its obvious they are going to take that short route for the first. Fitz, same kind of deal. 3 picks, but the last 2 to me were not on him. the second he was hit as he threw, the last the game was already over with 12 seconds no timeouts. if that is completed over the middle the clock runs out anyhow. I thought fitz was good second half, helped us get back in it. that pick in the endzone was a backbreaker. bad throw bad read. at the same time, why are we even throwing that route in that situation? down by 2, under 3 minutes. inside the 15. to me thats a situation where you either run the ball or run one of those safe passes where its a TD or its out of bounds/out of the endzone. like a fade to the back corner to marhsall or a backshoulder throw to decker at the pylon. i still prefer a second down run. kill some clock and hopefully pick up some more yardage. we ran well on that drive. At that point of the game, you HAVE to make sure worst case you come away with 3 points/the lead. i mean fitz and revis were bad, but they also were kind of put in position to be bad and never helped out. Overall impressions i had a feeling all week we were going to lose to buffallo. i tried not to post about it and to stay positive, but it just seemed like a bad spot for us. wrong team wrong time wrong place wrong weather. so that helps, but it is still such a major stomach punch. a decent team with decent preperation wins that game. the 20 yard punt by quigley. man, that was killer. and it was just too predictable that special teams would cost us at some point. missed FG, 20 yard punt. just back breakers. the clock management was frustrating as well. why are we concededing time at the end of the half...especially when wind was a factor, and especially with us trailing in a game where we struggled to get the ball to our offense? that was tough as well. i think its a game we kind of deserved to lose. bills werent at 100%, and honestly had we gone up early i think they may have folded. we gave them all the reason in the world to fight for 60 minutes. that opening 3 and out was the worst thing that could have happened What does this meaning going forward, was the season a success? I dont think it was a success. when you have a chance to make the playoffs, the last day, and lose to an inferior team, that isnt a successful season. that said, i wouldnt call it a failure... a failure would be bowles looking like kotite, fitz having a terrible season, and us finsihing at 8-8. id say it was somewhere in the middle as far as the future, normally this would be something you'd look ta and say alright we got something moving forward. but that is hard to do when your best players are all in there 30s. outside of the defensive line, its hard to look at and find someone young and be like this guy really helped carry us to 10 wins. next year, the core of our team will be; on the line we have williams, sheldon, wilkerson all young, but then its: Decker - 29 Revis - 31 Cromartie - 32 marshall - 32 mangold -32 harris - 32 fergeson - 33 fitzpatrick - 34 and we have contracts to deal with or have to look into replacing every single guy on that list except for decker and leonard. you look back to that 98 team, great run, but it went down the tubes quick in 99. id feel alot better about things if we had a young player at LT/QB/CB/Edge rusher who was at pro bowl level this year. instead its a 34 year old QB who is a stopgap, a 33 year old LT we may need to replace as soon as this offseason, revis making a ton of money, and no real edge rusher unless maulding becomes one and pace is gonna be 35 or 36 next year. not saying its all doom and gloom, but how good our team is next year depends entirely on the GM/scouting this offseason, and less to do with what happened on the field this season
Everything you said is true. I think where Macc has to be careful is not to turnover too much of the roster too quickly. I would say a gradual but well thought out roster turnover is called for here. To me, that means we do this slowly over the next 2 years or so. By 2017, your list should be down by 2/3rds. Key is going to be "Prioritization". Macc and TB will have to choose which side of the ball gets renovated first. From what I can see, offense has to be the priority this upcoming draft unless a blue chip LB falls to us. 2016 has to be Fitz's last season to be the starter as I think its become obvious to everyone that its time to move on to either Petty or Geno or Qb X. We can give Fitz "sunset" money but nothing like 5 years at X dollars. I have a feeling Fitz would be ok with being the mentor. I hope fans realize that we're not winning 10 games next year and record wise, we will take a step back. However that's the price you pay sometimes to get younger and move forward. Give this FO/CS time. They're only ONE year in..
Totally had the same feeling. I thought that this game was anything but a slam dunk and if the Jets started cold they were going to lose. Say what you will about Rex but he has a way of coming up with masterful Defensive gameplans when he is really focused on beating an opponent. And you know Rex, this was his Super bowl after all. What sickens me is not that we lost the shot at the playoffs. I really thought we were a borderline Playoff team anyway and wouldn't have gotten too far. What sickens me is that we let Buffalo take it from us. Buffalo is such a ridiculously mediocre team yet, it's a team that we always seem to find a way to lose to no matter how bad they are. Jets always seem to save their worst football for the Bills for some reason. Drives me crazy.
I am really worried that Devin Smith is gonna be a bust, especially when our receivers are getting older. Granted he didn't practice in the preseason, but his injuries concern me. I do not believe he is big enough to be a durable NFL player. He's listed at 6'1" 198 lbs, but looks a lot skinnier.
Good post. I agree with most of this. I do have faith that Macc can put together a good draft as scouting is supposed to be his strong point. Tough to be optimistic after a gut punch like this one, especially with the AFC playoff picture looking ripe for the picking. We certainly improved, but we also missed a huge chance at a playoff run. In this league those don't come around very often, especially with an older roster like we have. We need to nail this upcoming draft.
He has great deep speed and very nice ball-skills. I think this is a good environment for him to learn the game from successful veterans.
Mo Wilk played his ass off (only one I saw on defense) and all he got for it was a broken leg and no playoffs
I agree with most of what you said. This season becomes a gigantic failure if we miss the playoffs next year two, because after that the window is basically closed and every Pro-bowl calibre player we have will be moving way out of their prime. 2017 looks to be a big rebuilding year for this team unfortunately.
I feel worse today than I did yesterday. Yesterday I was just drunk, numb, tired and exhausted of all the ups and downs of this season. Schedule next year looks like a tough one "at this point" and I don't see winning 11 games like we had a great chance to do this year, but maybe next year the wildcard can be won at 9-7. I'm never going to get use to these crushing losses when we start slow and need to claw our way back just to come up short. It takes a lot out of you. We were the best team to not make the playoffs and we lost to rex twice allowing that to happen. I can't take any moral victory from that. I see people on this board saying TB will get better at coaching and that these mistakes are just because he's a rookie HC, but I can't bank on that. We thought ryan would change and learn from his mistakes, but it really didn't happen. This is my rant. Hopefully I feel better about this soon.
I'm just going to chalk it up to poor execution and being the worse team on that day. Bowles made a terrible play by deciding to not focus more on Watkins. Every third down, I knew the ball was going to Wakins. Sure enough, that is what happened. Revis didnt play well at all, but that was ultimately on Bowles/Rogers. Penalties, I'm inclined to not place on Bowles. Jets have been among the best in the league with penalties all year, so I'm not going to kill Bowles because Richardson jumped early, or an illegal hands to the face. Seems like a foolish thing to blame on the coach when it has been a team strength all year. If I'm ranking the blame that goes on people, it goes to Special Teams first and foremost. The Jets were never going to move the ball at will against the Bills. We know how Rex Ryan works, it just wasnt going to happen. He was up for this game, and had his guys ready. We just couldnt balance field position at all. All of our drives started deep in our own territory, and all of theirs started at the 50 or in our territory. I understand it was windy, but field position is too important to have such a shitty punter. - Drops were brutal - I recall a couple of annoying play calls - Fitz wasnt sharp early on. Its tough when you have a weak arm, its windy, and your playing from inside your own 20. The future of this team (obviously) falls directly onto Macc's shoulders. He did a good job fielding a competitive team this year. He also made at least two picks that I think will grow into impact players. If Harrison/Petty/Smith bring anything to the table thats just gravy IMO. But this is an old team right now, and depth needs to come from the draft, as it is cheap and young. MLB/OT/WR/RB all need to be addressed via either draft or UDFA. I dont think that Devin Smith is a bust yet, but we cannot go into the draft assuming he will be anything. I am very excited for this offseason.
Good post, I'll add Chan to the list too. Unless Bowles is covering for Ivory which I really don't get, the fact that they actually game planned around having Ridley as the feature back and using Ivory in a 3rd down role was just ludicrous. It's a do or die game. If Ivory gets hurt and can't play next week oh well, hope that Bilal can get on the field. At this point in the year it's focus on one game at a time because the next one isn't guaranteed. Just a terrible, terrible decision if this was not injury related.
its hard for me to quantify where we were as far as best/worst in the league.... but as far as penalties go.. the yardage and how many total flags i think is a very inaccurate measure. i think when it comes to penalties, its more about timing and what kind. for instance, you could have just 15 yards in penalties, but if one is an offsides on a 4th down,one is running into the kicker on a punt on 4th and 1, if one is say an illegal formation on a play where you scored a 70 yard touchdown that came back. those arent physical penalties, those are mental ones.... and in KEY situations. holding penalties, illegal contact, false start. those amounting to 80 yards but not in key situations on stuff thats mostly physical and not mental. those you can live with. also, look at the pats... well coached, discipline... look at there superbowl years and they were top 5 penalized team in all but 1 of them. id say this year, we havent been great with penalties, hard to quantify as i dont watch the other 31 teams like i do the jets, but all year we have had inexcusable mental/focus type penalties in CRUCIAL situations. and this week was just another example. i mean we had 2 or 3 games end on a penalty where we had a chance to win/tie but instead the game ended I cant excuse special teams. it was awful in a game where we had no room for error. but as far as field position, i think thats more on the defense. quigly obviously 20 yard punt KILLED us. but giving up what, 10 or 12 3rd/4th down conversions? the bills turned field position several times because we couldnt get stops.
I'm not really upset with the Ivory Riddley thing. i know alot of fans are, and i guess that it is warranted, but to me, that was just so far down the chain of issues it didn't really annoy or upset me at all.
Said prior to this game that if we lost , it would be worse than a playoff loss. And thats exactly what is it. Atleast after a playoff loss you know you were beaten by a good team. To think that AFC teams that are not as good as the Jets will be playing this weekend is sickening. And a win gets them a trip either a very weak 1 seed or a very weak 2 seed is even more frustrating. Im not saying we would've gotten to a Super Bowl if we won yesterday , but we had as good of a chance as any of the other teams. Easily the best out of any of the Wild Card teams IMO. And now we'll never know.
Also, Watkins played a lot at the Z/flanker position. Thus, he was off the line of scrimmage on many of those snaps making it very difficult to play press coverage on him. Off coverage is usually the best way to defend the Z WR especially one with Watkins' speed. The safeties and LBs didn't do Revis any favors either on many of the in breaking routes.
you dont need to press. you can still play closer to the line of scrimmage. you can still run an inside defender to buzz the underneath routes. you can still play tighter coverage. and alot of those he was on the outside. either way, there was little adjustment
C'mon - the Jets played a soft schedule - can not point to one signature win this season (sorry, an overtime win against a depleted Patriots team does not count). The Jets go into Orchard Park and couldn't win against a team playing its backup backups. Did the Jets really lose to an inferior team that got swept by said team or are the Jets the inferior team?
IMO, the two plays of the game were: 1) The shanked punt at 0-0. Before that punt, the Bills had run six plays and had two three and outs. That punt and field position sparked them. 2) The redzone int at 19-17. Devastating loss. This one will take a while to digest. No where near there.
I think that is the issue that most fans have. We dont watch the other teams with the focus we do the Jets. Jets have had the 4th least amount of penalty yards this year. Our penalties are under a microscope. Every single team has games where they have these types of penalties. But because we dont have a vested interest, it goes over everyone's head. Obviously some seem more frustrating than others, but penalties really were not an issue this year. Bowles takes a fair amount of blame for the loss yesterday, I dont think penalties are one of them. He has made this team way more disciplined than it was under Rex. The problem is, there are plenty more penalties being called across the board recently.
