As far as the coaching is concerned, this to me is the single most maddening thing that they do... or rather don't do. And that is call plays for Thomas Jones. It was noted in the Dolphins game that Thomas Jones was always the type of running back who picks up steam as the game goes on. Against the Dolphins, this was true, as Jones became more and more effective with each and every run... and guess what, WE WON!!! Other than the Dolphins though, the Jets offense has tried to force it with Pennington. Here are T. Jones' stats from the other 4: NE - 14 att., 42 yards @BAL - 24 att., 67 yards @BUF - 12 att., 35 yards @NYG - 13 att., 36 yards Compared to win over MIA: MIA - 25 att., 110 yards Now I know that the Baltimore game hurts my argument a little bit, but that was still a damn close game. In general, the Jets are not giving Jones the rock and I think it is a costly mistake. I feel like the Jets are being too "fancy" with the play calls. They aren't playing smash mouth football. What is worse, it seems like they always gain yards when they run straight up the gut. Why don't they do it more often? Part of the reason the rush attack was so poor today was because of all of the sideline runs. It never worked once. Why the hell did they keep calling it? All of the yards we did gain, was with Jones taking it straight up the gut. Why didn't they do that more? Sure it was only for 3 or 4 yards a pop... but that's how you wear down a defense! Jacobs and Ward were doing the same thing early in the game, running dives and off tackles right up the gut for 3 or 4 yards a pop. By the end of the game, the Jets D could not handle it anymore, and they collapsed. Why why WHY are they not doing this back? This is very poor on the part of the coaches... Schotty and Mangini. Until the Jets start consistently getting Jones the rock, nothing will change. The Jets will continue to struggle, and they will continue to blow it in the 4th quarter.
There has to be something wrong with thomas jones that ankle injury must still be bothering him cause i just dont see why they wouldnt give him the ball over 20 times again
This is the worst and most overused stat in sports analysis. It is a horrible case of correlation not equaling causation. When you are in the lead and already winning, you run the ball more to run down the clock. Hence, you end up with more carries when you have a lead in the second half. Winning causes more carries more often than vice versa. To use an extreme example that is the exact same logic, but more obviously ridiculous (Football Outsiders came up with this): The team that kneels the ball more times in the 4th quarter wins the game 100% of the time. Therefore, teams should clearly be kneeling more in the 4th quarter, yes? Everyone can see that that example is ridiculous, but people still buy into the "Team is 20-0 when RB gets 25 carries" stat even though it is the exact same logic as the ridiculous example.
Furthermore, trailing in a game causes more passing and fewer carries. And you are more likely to lose (duh) when you're already trailing. Getting your RB over 25 carries at that point isn't going to help you, it will just prove that idiotic stat wrong.
The Jets knelt more then the Steelers in the 4th quarter of the 04 playoff game and lost. Just sayin.
Guess what hotshot. Let's do a little math here. 3 games of not running Jones, 3 losses. That is 100% losing. 2 games of running Jones, 1-1. That is 50% winning, not much better, but something. Also noting the fact that the Ravens game was the closest loss we've had all season, AND it was Kellen Clemens first start ever, against one of the toughest defenses in the NFL. Further, let's apply a little logic to this discussion. So far, the Jets have not given Jones a fair shot running the ball. Has this produced anything for the Jets? Have the Jets been scoring? Have the Jets been productive on offense? Going by your excellent, well thought out logic, then the Jets should have run the ball more since they had the lead almost the whole game today right? WRONG!!!! They didn't do it. And what happened? They blew the game. With your logic I'm sure glad you're not the coach of the Jets. Then again, based on what we've seen this year, I guess you wouldn't do much worse.
He wasn't saying that when your in the lead, you should run. He's saying that using a stat like "a certain number of carries gives us a better shot at winning" is misleading, because the fact that a team is winning if often the reason that a back gets so many carries, rather than the RB getting that many carries being the reason that a team is winning. It's not necessarily an argument over whether the Jets need to run more, it's more that the stat you used doesn't mean anything. I could say that getting a kickoff return for a TD is bad for the Jets based on your argument. We've done it twice and lost twice. In your "math", that's 100% losing, whereas in the games where we didn't have kickoff return TDs we are 1-2 which is only 66% losing. Not great, but still better. We really shouldn't return kickoffs for TDs anymore.
I see what you are saying but disagree. As long as Chad is starting, our pass is setting up NOTHING. Jones is a physical runner who picks up steam as he starts getting into a rhythym. In order to get a rhythym he needs to continuously be fed the ball. The Jets are not doing that. They are trying to succeed on offense by using trickery and dink and dunk, and it is flat out failing. Maybe its time for a little smash mouth football... at least that's my opinion.
It's time for Clemens. If he can spread out our passing game and especially go deep other teams won't be able to stack the box. Then the run game will improve.
If you want to argue that Jones is a terrible fit for the offense and shouldn't have been acquired then I'm right there with you. Calling for a guy averaging 3.3 YPC to get more touches is something I can't get behind however. There's no surer recipe for failure for this offense then 2 ineffectual runs and a pass on 3rd and long. Frankly Washington seems to be a better fit for the offense and they seem to move the ball alot better when he's in there(usually at the end of a half when they've given up all pretense of trying to run it).
you might be onto something. There has to be a reason the coaches are being conservative in their decision making. Jones must be physically limited.
Normally I would agree about the YPC but I think the stats lie in this case. First they lie because defenses are able to stack the box but that doesn't mean much to this argument... second the stats lie because they don't really show a comparison of Jones' stats with north/south plays and east/west plays. I don't know why but the Jets have been making a HUGE effort to run outside. It just doesn't work. Ever since losing Mawae and Kendall, we no longer have anyone who can pull on the o-line, and it shows. I think the Jets have lost so much yardage and downs attempting those sideline run plays, it is a complete waste. It works once in a while but not enough to be a truly effective play. Watching Jones on TV, it seems like whenever they give him the ball, he always makes someone miss and fights for an extra yard or two once he gets hit. Running forward he probably averages closer to 4 ypc, with his sideways runs bringing his overall numbers down drastically. Washington is definitely better on passes than Jones, but Jones has been a better runner so far. He's a more physical runner, and that's what we need to start wearing down defenses. Washington may be a better fit with Chad in because Chad over-utilizes the dump off, but once Clemens starts playing the theory is that Clemens will start attacking downfield, which leaves little room for designing our running gameplan around a dump off back. That makes Jones the best option despite the low numbers so far.
That may or may not end up being the case but it still doesn't address the issue of why he was brought in in the first place. At least as of now Chad is still the QB and I can't believe that they Jets thought they would be make a QB change at this point of the season.
I don't think they anticipated Chad going into a shell the way he has. Jones was supposed to be a spark for Pennington's play action which mostly was invisible last year. In the past the play action was the staple of Pennington's arsenal... the problem is, teams are so committed to stacking the box, that they don't really give the Jets an opportunity to effectively use play action because even if the play action fools the defense, they know Chad more than likely won't wing it anyway. And they also know that even if he does end up launching it down the field, the velocity is so low on his passes that they have a good opportunity to get there in time to break it up.
Today, I have realized one painful fact from the way Pennington was throwing a long ball. His arm strength has deteriorated to the point where he has to bend his upper torso to gain enough momentum to swing the ball. This means: 1. His pump fakes mean absolutely nothing. Don't even bite. He is not throwing. (You wouldn't be bending your torso just for a pump fake anyway... you'd get sacked!) 2. You KNOW when the ball is coming out, and when the ball is released, you can almost guarantee a duck will fly out of it too, along with "Quack" sound - which in turn means easy INT. Play action? I don't think that is an option now. As a safety, you just need to check Pennington occasionally during the play.
I like edge's point here, but you have to gain consistent yardage in order to commit to the run. 25 plus carries usually means you're doing something right. The problem is our offensive line isn't making any headway whatsoever up the field, and we're telegraphing things. Remember the graphic that said "the Jets run 95 percent of the time out of this formation"? That was embarrassing. While I haven't been impressed with Jones so far, I don't think we're making his job any easier. -X-
The line is so terrible that we cannot run the ball. Look at the Buffalo game. The CS came out trying to establish the run against the worst defense, other than ours, and could not do anything. The argue is always on Pennington, but our running game last year was 10 times better than this year. The only team that even seems close to having as bad a running game is Green Bay, but they have Favre. Also, there winning is going to stop unless they learn to run the football. I have never seen a team use as many QB sneaks to get short yardage. We have no running game.
It was the Dolphins! We won the game because they ran out of time and are a bad football team! Unfortunately we only play them one more time this year for that strategy to work.
oh you mean when we played the dolphins, one of the worst run d's in the league? the line cant run block. theres no use in dedicating 25+ of your plays to it. plus when Jones actually had run blocking in Chicago it was figured out hes most effective with under 20 carries.
