Good stuff. Hopefully it will cause those claiming Bell is washed up to pump the brakes a bit. Also, underscores that the focus this off season needs to be offense since the defense is way more solidified - which it SHOULD be after 10 years of focus on that side of the ball.
The times Bell did have room, he still didn’t do much. The guy is just slow with no burst at all. We are paying him like a top back and I feel we all expect more from him.
lol he was rushing behind one of the WORST offensive lines within NFL history lmao but yet people want to point to "burst" and "yards per carry" ala couldn't be more clueless. Funny how Bell critics refuse to admit how Bell just led ranked 7th amongst all NFL HB's in receptions ala giving Darnold a security blanket with 66 pass receptions. No mention of his 60+ receptions? Funny how that works.
His whole game is based upon waiting to see where the holes open. Too often there were none. When there were he showed he can still get yards where very few backs can. Were there times there were holes he mis-read, or didn't get the yards? Sure, even Jim Brown got tackled. Not saying Bell is as good as Brown was - NO ONE has ever been that good IMO - but the point is that the nature of being a RB means you get tackled - sometimes behind the LOS or after only a yard or two. Bell was badly misused under Gase. I don't know why, whether because Gase didn't want him to begin with, or Gase doesn't know how to use a stud RB, but he clearly didn't use him to his advantage. I sure hope that it wasn't a case of Gase trying to "prove" Bell isn't worth his big contract, and it's because he just didn't know how to use him. If it's the latter reason, Gase might be able to learn; if it's the former, then the problem won't go away until Gase does.
It was a awful signing, sad when Powell has better speed and a better burst, than the supposed great Bell, hopefully he gets cut
Or maybe it's just that Bell wasn't worth the contract because after a 21 month hiatus he had an incredibly hard time adjusting back to the speed of the NFL? Don't forget that Bell also benefitted from playing with two Hall of Fame players and a top 5 offensive line. There's a reason that we were the only team in on Bell and WE gave him a deadline to accept or we're going to move on. And he accepted. It's also easy to be patient when you have stud offensive lineman blocking in front of you. You can wait for the pulling guard and tackle if you don't have any backside run through. Should we have split Bell out more? Yes. Did we do so and teams just blitzed right through anyway? Also yes. He's the only runningback or tightend that can pass protect.
All reasonable points. And it could well be that after that long vacation it did take him longer to re-adjust to things, especially with a swiss cheese OL for most of the year. And yes, Gase DID finally make some adjustments, but again why did it take him so long to do so? And even when he did, why not try more of it? At any rate, for whatever reason, while Bell didn't have his typical season, I don't believe he's washed up. Hopefully the OL can be significantly upgraded, and Gase figues out a way to use his talents.
To the point about Bell, there's this article from the NY Post: https://nypost.com/2020/01/08/how-the-jets-can-avoid-another-leveon-bell-disaster/ A fair assessment about what needs to change to take advantage of Bell. And to my point that Gase bears some blame for Bell's below average season: "It was not a secret Gase was not in favor of signing Bell because of the high price tag. However, it is hard to say Gase did not use him because of that. Bell’s 311 touches were eighth most among running backs. The seven backs ahead of him averaged 75 yards rushing per game or more. Bell’s average was 52.6. So, the numbers indicate, if anything, Gase may have stuck with Bell too much. Where you can criticize Gase is regarding how he used Bell. Gase, running backs coach Jim Bob Cooter and offensive line coach Frank Pollack need to examine how Bell was used this year and figure out what can be improved. Did they rely too much on zone blocking? Would Bell be better off with a fullback in front of him more often? The answers are not obvious from the outside, but it is something the coaching staff must figure out. Gase said he and Bell spoke about taking a closer look at what he did with the Steelers and trying to incorporate that next year. That is a start." I don't understand why it would take an entire season of not getting the results you expect before you step back and ask yourself: "Should I be doing something different?" SMH. I truly hope Gase if finally looking in the mirror to see where the problem lies.
Why do you keep saying it’s Gase’s fault? Sure Gase didn’t use Bell perfectly, but the main issue is that we couldn’t run the damn ball because the offensive line was the worst in the league It wasn’t like we could pass block either so I’m not sure what you wanted Gase to do? I agree they should’ve used Bell more as a pass catcher in different capacities but the glaring issue still remains that our RB had zero blocking and that’s not a Gase thing, it’s a talent/ injury thing
It's possible that coaching is part of the reason the OL was so bad. There's more to coaching than just calling plays.
Bell's biggest asset has always been his vision. I don't think he ever showed great burst or speed, but he has patience, determination and the ability to spot where the gap is going to be, even in the open field. He still does that, but the are precious few gaps to hit. Bear in mind that his season long run the last year in Pitt was under 30 yards and I think he only has one 50+ yard run in his career. He isn't, and never has been the sort of back that hits holes hard and breaks long runs regularly. I'm not sure there is any significant blame to be attached to Gase or that Bell has declined though rust and injuries may have been a factor at points. It's just another example of Jets mismanagement - making the splash statement signing but lacking the pieces on the roster to make it a success. Bell has delivered just about exactly the sort of reduced numbers I was anticipating this season.
The questions asked above (in italics) are not questions you can pivot on for an answer in-season. The Jets had a zone-blocking scheme with personnel fitted into that scheme. Then people on the OL started to get hurt. A lot of people. Not surprisingly there are few if any real OL answers available to an NFL team after the waiver wire jumble at the end of training camp. There just aren't any people on the street after that who would help, scheme or no scheme. Trades are virtually out of the question in-season because everybody else is having injury problems as well and the few teams that aren't are thanking their lucky stars and hanging on to their backups just in case. A FB? What's a FB? The Jets had no FB's on the roster last year and the TE's were either pre-injured or fully accounted for elsewhere in the offense. The point of all of this is that criticizing Gase, Cooter and Pollack for Bell's performance, which was largely caused by the OL not being a fit for Bell's running style and then a wave of injuries that occurred during the season, is just not looking at the realities involved. Suggesting that they could have picked up a fullback in season and changed the offensive scheme to better suit Bell (by giving him an arrangement that he had never used in the NFL) is just a massive red herring. It looks like an attempt to throw the proverbial kitchen sink at Gase when the actual argument don't stack up well. Criticize everything you can and maybe something will stick. The reality of the Jets last season from the get-go was that the organization had put no priority on the OL for years and years. They signed a 34 year old retired C to a huge salary, a guy who would have stayed where he was if he could still play at a decent level, to cover up the fact that the organization had just gone through a clueless phase that lasted at least 4 seasons but probably much longer than that. They signed a 31 year old G who was in decline to play LG. They added them into a mix that included a home grown RG who cannot stay healthy over the course of a season. They signed a star RB who had played very well in Pittsburgh with a strong offensive line in front of him and expected him to make the Jets line better somehow. This despite the fact that he relied on his line more than most backs due to his running style which saw him spend 3 seconds a carry in the backfield looking for a hole. The OL they cobbled together got very few snaps together in the pre-season due to conditioning and injury issues and was seeing their first in-line experience together in the opener against Buffalo, who we now know had a very stout run defense and a good pass rush. This is on Mike Maccagnan, period. He's the guy who dissed the OL for 5 seasons then traded for Osmele, in belated recognition of how badly he had botched the OL over the years, when he was being pressured to sign Le'veon Bell and there was *no way* that was going to end well. The Ryan Kahlil signing was a clearly desperate attempt by Douglas and Gase to get out of the trap that Maccagnan had left for them. There was no reason to believe that Kahlil was going to be a good C last year. The best the Jets could hope for was that he would hold down the fort while the Jets tried to develop a young replacement, alongside the other assets they would need to develop on the OL. Le'veon Bell (and Adam Gase) were doomed to a down season from the start. There weren't any in-season adjustments that were going to overcome the failure of preparation over a half decade that preceded 2019. The NFL just doesn't work that way. If you make one stupid decision high in the draft or with a poorly thought out free agent signing that decision will come back to haunt you for seasons to come. If you routinely make stupid decisions high in the draft and in free agency, well that's what got the Jets where they are now.
Bell doesn't have breakaway speed. He's the type of runner who waits patiently behind a blocker to throw him in front of a defender. He needs to get in space behind a lead blocker on screens or tosses, not pounded up the middle on A gap dives. All year the guy consistently fought off defenders in the backfield to gain whatever he could. Fix the OL and we'll see more of the LeVeon Bell we saw in Pittsburgh.
Be prepared to be accused of making excuses. Though no one has yet to make the delineation between excuse and cause.
All you need to do is look at the last decade of drafting. The last skill player the Jets have drafted in the first round was Santana Moss in 2001. Yes, I know about Dustin Keller in 2008 but TE isn't a true skill position. The Jets haven't drafted an offensive linemen in the 2nd round or higher since 2010, Vlad Ducasse. The offensive linemen the Jets have drafted since Brick and Mangold are as follows: 2007: Jacob Bender - 6th round 2008: Nate Garner - 7th round 2009: Matt Slausen - 6th round (Actually a solid pick here) 2010: Vlad Ducasse - 2nd round 2012: Robert Griffin - 6th round 2013: Brian Winters - 3rd round, Oday Aboushi - 5th round (Boy this was a fun pick), and William Campbell - 6th round 2014: Dakota Dozier - 4th round 2015: Jarvis Harrison - 5th round 2016: Brandon Shell - 5th round 2019: Chuma Edoga - 3rd round Offensive line is one of the top 3 most impactful positions on the football field, and the Jets have put this on the bottom of their priority list for more than a decade. It's a cruel joke at this point, luckily the Jets seem to have a GM in Joe Douglas who prioritizes the trenches.
I knew it was bad, but seeing it listed it out makes it that much worse. What the actual fuck were these three bozos thinking?
That drafting IDL in the first round 5 out of 10 years for a 3-4 defense is BOUND to recreate the NY Sack Exchange.