Damn, this guy has everything you want in a QB in terms of physical traits, and that academic honor roll thing sure speaks well for his intellectual ability. But...a lot of other NFL teams probably think the same thing. Fortunately, it looks like the teams that will draft ahead of us all have their starter of the future already, except Miami maybe, and probably Oakland and Detroit, and if they draft ahead of us, the Vikings. I'm not sure what Green Bay and Tampa Bay are doing, but I think they like who they have. It's actually kind of pitiful when you look around the league, most of the teams seem to be set at QB and not have these recurring doubts about their starter. The league seems to be transitioning to a new batch of younger QBs or they already have fairly established decent QBs. Aside from us, what other team has so many doubts as to their QB, and yet has no one ready to step in? Maybe Clemens is the guy for us, who knows.
I've watched Russell play quite a few times. (Before I attended West Virginia, I listed LSU as my favorite team.) He compares to Culpepper, but Russell's going to be a better. I am not a Culpepper fan at all, by the way. As a Dolphins hater, I was ecstatic when the Dolphins acquired him. Russell connected on a ridiculously long pass on Saturday. Maybe I could find a clip. Detroit, Oakland, and Minnesota will need new quarterbacks. After that, everyone else seems set for now. I would like to see Clemens play in some meaningful moments this year so we can see if he can be the answer. I am not sure about Brady Quinn just yet. He might be good in the NFL, but he might not. Chad Henne and Kevin Kolb may turn out to be good pros. Jordan Palmer could possibly be good. I don't like Brian Brohm. Here's a Russell clip from the UT game- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aReGrVhn7TA&mode=related&search= Here's video from the Auburn game- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfJiJZXTJWo&mode=related&search= There will be no noodle arm comments with this guy. His skills will need to be refined in the NFL, but all the tools are there.
People need to step back and relax a little. After last week Mangini was the second coming and the Jets are playoff bound. Now the sky is falling? People have to realize that this team is still missing many pieces and are lacking talent at many key positions. That even though Mangini, Schotty, and this CS is very smart, creative, and have a big upside, they are still rookies and are going to make mistakes. Also that the questions with the running game, the run defense, and QB (Penny being up and down all year) still remain. Even with all that, this CS still has this team at 5-5. They have mediocre players performing at a high level. They managed to beat the Pats at their home stadium. That they held there own with the 2 best teams in the league (Colts and Bears), even though they ended up losing. So no my faith isn't shaken. I expected the Jets to lose this game, just by objectively looking at the talent levels of both teams. This new regime has the organization heading in the right direction, and after another year or two, these are the games we will be winning.
Exactly. 5-5 is way better than I expected at this point. Very few players on this team will still be with the team the next few years when the Jets will be a major force in the league. I say that because Eric Mangini is a good coach. It looks like he's going to be an excellent head coach, in fact. I just don't know who the heck the QB will be. 2006 is a year to lay the foundation and weed out the crap players.
You and I watched a different game today. The Jets ran well in the first half, I agree and the Pennington interception cost the Jets 3 or 7 points. Where I disagree is in the second half. The Jets had 90 yards rushing at halftime and finished with 108. If you call 18 yards rushing in the second half running the ball, well . . . . And as for comment about stopping the run, you must have missed something. The Bears gained 173 yards rushing today. 173!!!! They ran all over the Jets on a day when Grossman was not a threat. If giving up 173 yards is stopping the run, I don't even know what to say. The only way to beat the Bears is to put them in passing situations and pressure Grossman. The Jets did not do that. Joey Harrington beat the Bears because the Dolphin defense forced turnovers deep in Bear territory. The defense even scored a TD. The Jets defense did not force a single turnover today. Yes, Pennington had a bad game. He gets blame today, especially the first interception. But you have to put things in perspective. The Bear defense is fast and extremely good. They have given up 7 passing TDs all year and have not given up 300 yards total to any team they played. Does that excuse Pennington's play? Not completely. But to compare his game to Harrington's is completely ridiculous. Harrington played on short field the entire game (sometimes less than 10 yards). The blame also lies with the defense, which let the Bears run all over them today. That way, they didn't force Grossman into passing downs and the Bears did not turn the ball over once. You don't beat the Bears without turnovers. Third, Drew Coleman made the biggest blunder of the day, missing that tackle on the only TD of the game. Without that play, it remains a 3 point game and the Jets are playing for a tying FG with 6 minutes to go instead of trying to make up 10 points. Fourth, the onsides kick gave the Bears the momentum in the second half. It was like a turnover. Bad decision. So I agree Pennington gets blame today, but there is plenty of other blame to go around. This game was in no way like the Baltimore game on Christmas Eve in 2000 when the Jets gained 500 yards to the Ravens 150 yet lost solely because Testaverde turned the ball over 4 or 5 times and had two picks returned for TDs. But if you think holding the Bears to 173 yards rushing is stopping the run and gaining 20 yards rushing in the second half of a close is running the ball, you need to re-evaluate how you measure defensive and offensive success. But the defense gets blame also
You certainly did watch a different game if you want to pin even 1% of the blame for this loss on the defense. They were put in a bad position coming out of the locker room at the half and gave up 3, and the other 7 scored on an extremely poor play by a single member of the defense. The loss is either entirely Pennington's fault, or you can give an assist for the CS for leaving him in there to bumble around all game if you want to go that route.
I have no gripes with the coaching staff. I love them. But how can you say you want to be aggressive and give up field position by going for an onside kick, yet pass on 2 long field goals, which would have done the same thing? If you tell me you are afraid of Devin Hester then I am going to thrtow up. You want to be aggressive, then be aggressive all the way down the line.
Your Big LSU quarterback is unsteady in teh pocket. Look at his feet. He doesn't take proper drops, he just does whatever he feels like, which works in college but not in the nfl. He also has happy feet and doesn't plant he feet when he throws
Chicago got a total of 12 first downs in the game, they were destroyed in TOP, they punted 8 times and had a total of 284 net yards on Offense. That was a great Defensive performance by the Jets yesterday. Pennington averaged under 4.5 yards per attempt in a game that he had wide recievers wide open including Coles on the red zone INT. He turned the ball over in the red zone and in Chicago territory and basically made bad reads all game and missed wide open recievers all game and walked off the field clean as a whistle becuase the OL played great. If you want to blame the D for that loss yesterday feel free. The D won the Pats game and they outplayed the Bears D yesterday.
Risk-Reward, right fella's..Onside doesn't work we hold to three..still lose 3-0.Everyone on this board talked about the defense being more aggressive and we are 10-0..Hey take Herm back if you want to be conservative..this coach is trying to f**king games..He has to take risks.Too many arm chair coaches here..second guessing is part of it, did you not see how good the F**king bears defense is or what, that was a big part of why Chad had a bad day..Chicago rings up 38 on the Jints and our defense plays great and lets shitcan everyone because we lose to a 8 and 1 team..KEEP THE FAITH
I'll say this, I HATE moral victories, BUT this team played WELL against in MY opinion the BEST team in the NFL. one of the top rated offenses and #1 ranked D in the League, the BEST team in the NFC and we went toe to toe with them, with a team that was SUPPOSED by many be contending for a top 3 draft pick in the '07 NFL Draft. NO, I dont understand the onside kick and If Coleman does not 'SLIP' trying to ARM TACKLE, the Bears receiver does NOT get a 57yd td reception. Chad played terribly once again, I dont understand him throwing that ball that Thasher intercepted instead of taking the friggin sack you NEVER do that. But they JETS offense did pretty well against a Bears D that has NOT given up 300 yards of ttl offense to ANY team this season. This team would NOT have been at 500 under Edwards, this team would have proven every player, opposing coach, scout and reporter right on the Edwards/BADway regime. I will say 1 word and end this: REBUILDING. Thats what this team is, this is NOT a playoff contending team who is surprising the hell out of alot of people and despite some questionable calls, Mangini and Tannenbaum have gotten the best out of a group of players who are servicable at best.
He's a rookie HC, it's expected he'll make dumb decisions from time to time. He has now cost us 2 games w/ poor decision making(Indy and Chi) and when we look back at why we didn't make the playoffs we'll look at those 2 games but in the long run we'll be better off. I could understand the idiotic decision to go for it on 4th and G from the 3 tied w/ Indy late in the 3rd more than I can kicking the OS Kick yesterday to begin the 2nd half. let's say we get it, we have it around our 40. It's not like it was going to lead to points. The O's stunk yesterday and it was going to be a mistake that led to points and you put Chi back as far as possible and make that O earn the 3 pts. It was an awful decsiions along w/ running it on 1st and 2nd down when we had 1st and G from the 9 then forcing the pass on 3rd and G from the 5. Those 2 sequences cost us the game.
3rd, you got stuck in the win now mode, you have to give them more time than that, we were never much of a contender to begin with if we were one, this is just year one of this rebuild process with still an average team with average talent, in a year or 2 than this argument can about true contender can be valid but not now, and no coach is perfect especially a rookie one, but I will agree with you on this my patience is running out on Nugent, the fact that we have no faith in him from kicks 47 yards or more speaks volumes
I don't know if he actually costed us that game, his mistakes led to 3 points for Chicago, and even if he did go for it, it wasn't like our offense has shown thoughout the game that we can make a 4th and long conversion, our D held them to 10, the fact that that wasn't enough we would have lost anyway without those decisions.
the onside kick cost us 3 points -- 3! Our offense needs to generate more than we did. What killed us was a turnover in the endzone and another one at the 30 -- that coul dhave been 10 points right there. The onside kick was aggressive and they took a shot , but it didn't kill them. Punting I dind't like, but they had a feeling the D would go three and out and give dwight a shot at another big return. If anyone said 3 weeks ago that we could split against the Pats and the Bears would you have said hell yeah and been smiling about it?????? We split and we one the more important of the two - we lost to the top NFC team yesterday -- we just can't afford losses to AFC teams and we need to beat the teams we should beat - Huston, GB, Miami, Oakland, Buffalo - our question game is the Vikings, but they are an NFC team so it might hurt as bad
The winds were swirling yesterday, it wasn't a good decision to attempt a +50 yd kick. Chicago went for it on 4th down once rather than attempt a long FG too.
I didn't watch the beginning of the game, however this wasn't the first game Mangini chose to do something else rather than give Nugent a chance at a long FG, his short kickoffs, no chance at a long FG, inconsistant from 40-49, I am getting sick of this, like others have said getting a 7th rounder kicker would be better than this guy
It depends on the conditions and the situation. Even the best K's aren't consistent from 50 yds so you have to weigh whether you want to give an opponent the ball at the 40. If he had Vinatieri yesterday he wouldn't have kicked the FG.
The way Chad and the Jets offense played in the 2nd half validated the decision to attempt an onsides kick in my book. You can't win a game 0-0 and playing the field position game in the first half netted ZERO points. I was more disappointed with the decision not to kick the FG on 4th and 7. If you don't have faith in your kicker to nail a big kick in a big game, then you should start looking elsewhere. (I really don't want to hear about the "swirling" winds of Giants stadium, etc. here.) You have the chance to make it a one possession game. You have to do it. I don't know what to think about Chad anymore. Before this week I would have said he gives the Jets the best chance to win, but now I am not so sure. He hasn't had a good game in a month, isn't accurate and is now making stupid decisions.
