Tough, close loss. Special Teams: Folk had a horrific day, sure. Our return/coverage teams were exponentially better than they were last season. Our field position was generally fantastic and we've made massive strides there. Offense: About what I expected. Red zone play was a pale shadow of least season, but I think we outperformed our talent there last year and some sort of regression was in order, especially without a power back as good as Ivory for defenders to worry about. Forte is a solid back, but he's more of an upgraded Bilal Powell. We kind of had a hydra-like setup with a pair of big receiving targets and a power back last year, our ability to road-grade in short yardage just isn't there with our current OL/RB status. That said, I'd like to see us against teams with DL's that are less stacked than Cincinnati's - a better interior run game might encourage the box-stacking that allowed the gashing screens and 20+ yard pickups of our best offensive performances last season. Cincinatti's back 7 is better than people give them credit for, and I'd like to see more exploitation of 1-on-1 size mismatches aerially. Fitzpatrick's arm isn't suddenly going to turn into a cannon and none of our guys are blazing downfield threats, so I don't really see other options for us until we've got more vertical threats in the passing game. (aka new QB/WR1, or "some other year") Defense: Big questions defensively are can we continue a pretty dominant DL performance while fixing the (obvious) problems on the defensive back-end. Hopefully getting Richardson back only makes our defensive front even more dominant, but all those sacks don't mean a lot if your DBs are going to give up multiple 45+ yard chunk plays to mitigate their hard work.
They p They played ok. But I never understand how head coaches who have been in the league for a long time don't realize that the rules are made for offense. Always go for the TD in short yardage.
While we made too many costly mistakes that the Bengals capitalized on, in my mind, these errors along with our failures to execute at critical points are easily fixable and were far outweighed by how many things we were able to do well. The performance of the O-line greatly exceeded my expectations against a true top quality defense and our defensive line was better was arguably better than ever, even with the absence of Sheldon. Some of Gailey's play calling made me nuts, particularly the late game series when we had the Bengals completely winded, off balance and totally unable to stop the run. I believe we had a 2nd and goal on the 1 and the Bengals compressed goal line formation was ripe for a raping on a play action pass outside but no.... It was without question a deeply disappointing loss especially because we easily could have and should have won this game. Fitz' limitations as a QB were only magnified by the presence of Dalton and his far superior ability. Our DC failed to make adjustments on the last drive of the 2nd half where were making charitable donations on those sideline routes all the way down the field as well as failing to give Revis help up top when he was clearly struggling against Green. Still, despite the considerable pain and suffering, I come away from this game with a lot more positives than I went in with and remain very optimistic for our prospects as a playoff team this season.
Gotta blame this loss on our emotionally special teams. Missed extra point and blocked field goal are inexcusable.
Couple of things that stood out to me today 1) we made no adjustments on how to guard against those screen plays. 3rd and short we are playing soft coverage and 3rd and long we are playing press.. isn't that backwards? 2) We had the ball on the 1 yard line.. why are we getting cute? you just called a designed qb run with Fitz.. run another one! New england would have let brady dive over the pile 3x to score 7 there. We didn't capitalize on any mistakes Cinci made. That game was there for the taking and we didn't do it. I think we are going to be absolutely smash Buffalo come this Thursday. Cinci was a 12-4 team last year and we were right there to win that game. I think we are going to surprise some people who are saying this schedule is so daunting. On to Buffalo.
While people are saying the season is over because of our schedule, I'm taking a different perspective. We had this game won against a near-elite team and made mistakes to beat ourselves. We seem to lose games we should win and win games we should lose. We're going to compete in all of those tough games, and we can win many of them. If they're going to be a playoff team they have to play like a playoff team and beat other good teams. They can do it, we'll be okay this season.
Do me a favor, start listening to Beningo and Roberts, specifically Joe Beningo. I'll never be optimistic with this team ever again. Only one year I was optimistic and that was '99. The franchise is pathetic and every year I question why I root for them.
I'm hopeful Fitz gets better or God forgive me, It may be time to let Geno audition for his next team. I think its become obvious to everyone that Fitzmagic has just about run its course and its time to move into the future come what may.
I am without a doubt a realist that leans towards the pessimist spectrum. I'll definitely take your suggestion and listen to them, eventually. I understand being a Jets fan sucks. There's a reason why the "same old Jets" is a term that exists. This franchise has been shit for so long. I, too, question why I remain a fan that comes into each season with actual hope. I'll never be able to switch teams, though. However, I'm just not ready to give up on the season after the first game, no matter how bad it looks. Anything could happen. That's why the "any given Sunday" is a term that also exists. The teams we play can have bad games against us, major injuries (though I don't root for that) can happen to key players on those teams, etc. We have no idea what's going to happen this season, though we have our strong, educated guesses. I like this team outside of the QB (fml) and the general direction it seems to be going. It does suck, though, since it's a 16 game season, under certain circumstances like the schedule we have this year, that losing the very first game and going 0-1 can already give us a strong idea that we're going to miss out on the playoffs again. It's really frustrating, actually.
Red Zone D sucks, Revis is the biggest chickshit pussyfooter that thinks about nothing but finding ways to not get hurt. Ball-less putting on his perfect Herman Edwards impersonation. If he Jets can't beat the Bengals short quick passing game how will they beat the patriots when they do it to the Jets? It won't really matter by then cuz when they lose Thursday night the lugs on the wheels will start to come loose and the Jets won't be able to find the wrench or wrenches to tighten them back up. Bills 22-17 LOL
here is the good news, last time the Jets started 0-1, it was 2010 and a lot of magic happened that year ...
Can't wait to see Brandon Marshall start to miss his Lexapro after the Bills loss and he is only targeted 4 or 5 times.
Unfortunately, I don't see us winning more than 4 or 5 games this year. They'll have a top 5 defense with TFL and sack stats, but the secondary was horrible, Revis worst of all. I also think we wasted our 1st round pick on Darron Lee. What the hell are we actually using him for? On the other side of the ball, we have one of the most talented offenses in the NFL, and yet Bowles was terrified to call anything except the most predictable plays. Not that Fitzpatrick helped the situation; he's just a "good" QB, but not someone who can take over a game. Too many "coulda, woulda, shoulda" plays. It just seems like this is going to be one of those years where we just keep fall short against every team that doesn't beat themselves for us.
The downside to that is we wind up with a middlin Draft pick which undoubtedly will be used on the BPA no matter what our most pressing need is.
