Great insight by by the radio man... I like Bobby W. He's a good backup on Ranger games too....Enjoy. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Amidst all the hysteria of the play call second-guessing and the "did the Jets forget they have Brett Favre?" nonsense (and by the way, that is nonsense ... the Jets are running many of the same plays Favre ran in Green Bay ... but I digress), what seemed to be lost in the background noise after the Patriots game was the single biggest reason the Jets came up short. Field position was, by far, the single most important statistical story teller last week. Bill Parcells always had a theory about "hidden yardage" inside the game. Too often when analyzing the stats it seems people look at total offense, total defense, etc., stats that can easily be rendered meaningless if field position is a big factor. Well, I don't think I've ever done a game where it played as big a part as last week. According to Parcells (and he's not the only one to use this formula, he's just the one that I learned it from), 100 yards of "hidden yardage" or field position is worth 7 points. Put simply, Team A has 10 possessions in a game and they start all 10 at their own 30-yard line. Team B has the ball 10 times and they start their 10 drives at their own 20-yard line. So before either team even runs a play on offense, Team A has a 7-point advantage on Team B. The theory being that if you start 10 drives 10 yards further up the field than your opponent, you're going to score a TD at some point your opponent won't score simply because your drives are easier to execute, you're starting a first down ahead on every possession, etc. Well, apply this to the Jets-Patriots game and you'll see why most of the hand-wringing over playcalling this week was completely misplaced. The Jets had nine possessions and the Patriots had nine possessions. The Jets' average starting field position was their own 21-yard line. The Pats started on average at their own 42! New England had a 21-yard advantage PER DRIVE. They opened 5 possessions IN JETS TERRITORY! That means that before either offense even ran a play in the game, by the hidden yardage theory, the Pats had a 189-yard advantage in the game and were up by 13 points. Look at the result, the Jets lost by nine. Everything in this game fed off field position. Brett Favre never got the short field to get the Jets offense going. Matt Cassel never once had to deal with the pressure of the crowd, deep in his own end, up against his own goal line, needing to drive his team 75 to 90 yards. This wasn't the only factor in the game, but it was without question the most important. http://www.newyorkjets.com/blog/posts/698-shoes-hidden-yardage-was-a-killer-vs-pats
I agree with another point, one which he may not have meant to make. The crowd sucked!! I expected more noise, especially with a QB who was on shaky ground. I lost my voice during the game, I wish others had joined me . . .
+1000 The crowd was good for the 1st drive, and then after the Feely miss- they were quiet. I blame Feely for the whole thing.
I'm not buying into that..........we failed to stop Jordan and our play calling was too conservative.......we should have thrown more.....we have the gun slinger.......let him go!!!
It felt like my section got loud again a few more times, especially on 3rd downs to help out the defense but you can't really blame the crowd because the team's play was very enthusiasm-deflating.
I thank you so much for screaming your lungs out during that game. I couldn't believe the absolute silence the Pats got for most of their drives. It's really frustrating. Fans just must not understand how noise can affect an offense. Jesus, the twelfth man has been Seattle's best player for 5 years now! I can't call out any other fans for not making noise because I wasn't there, but I can thank you, thank you, thank you for yelling.
I do agree with this, but the blame does not entirely go to the special teams. Often the offense needs to create field position by converting 1 or 2 first downs on a drive. We had a total of 12 first downs compared to 18 for NE. Of the 9 possessions in the game, we had 4 three-and-outs. So, not only were we giving NE great field position because our offense was not playing well, but even when our defense forced them to punt, we couldn't get out of our own end. Point being, it's so important to to be able to move the ball and get first downs, even if they don't directly lead to points. If we could have made a few more first downs in that game, the result would likely have been different.
This has been discussed all week, STs cost us last week's game loising 32 easy points and seeing an avg. starting FP at the 21 while NE's avg. starting FP was the 37.
It adds fuel to the fire of the debate over that first-and-goal situation. If the Jets had gone for it on fourth down, they may have scored a TD, but if not they would have pinned the Pats back deep in their own territory, putting Cassel under pressure and possibly, just possibly, changing the momentum of the game.
If it was 4th and 1 we would have went but 4th and 3 is too far back and we didn't have any points on the board yet so kicking was the right call at that moment but it would have been nice if we didn't need to kick the FG.
I wouldn't have minded backing Cassel up to the 3 and continuing that sequence there. But hindsight is 20/20, anything different looks better after a loss. The week before he threw a bomb to Moss out of his own end zone so who knows? Of course that was at home and not with the hostile crowd right behind him in the end zone.
Stop it with the crowd comments. I was there. The crowd was very good.... even when we knew it was over it was still pretty loud. On TV you don't see it. Live at the game, we were loud. It was probably the best crowd in 3 years.
I agree. I've also noticed that HDTV fucks with the volume. You hear some things and not others, sometimes I can't hear the announcers at all.
I met these 2 Canadians that flew in for the game, and they said "Eh, you guys can really make some noise in this place, Eh"
Give the fans a reason to yell damnit!!! Feeley took the air out, followed by a quiet drive by the Pats. Kills the big "momentum". Then we conservatively try to move the ball. Hard to yell, although I tried, for paint drying!
OK, I just got it, I've been wondering all night who the hell Hidden Yarage was and how he killed us. Can someone fix the title?
