Giving up 10 catches and 160+ yards isnt "admirably" in any shape or form. Cromartie looked awful on some plays and good on others. We know Marshall is good but to put up those numbers against this defense is pathetic. With or without Revis. Cro and the rest of the defense just have to play better. Bottom line.
It's not my feelings about Revis. I was against the trade-up for a CB when the Jets did that. Just like I was against the trade-up for Santana Moss when the Jets did THAT. There are some positions that you cannot squeeze multiple wins out of in a season if you try. CB, WR, P... There are other positions where if you have a dominant player there's no question you're getting wins out of them. QB, ROLB or NT in a 3-4, S...
Two out of the three teams in our division have a top 5 in the NFL WR. Why would we want an above average to very good corner covering those guys just to get lit up (as Cromartie did) when you can have a player that removes them from the game entirely and forces the Pats/Fins to find other ways to beat you. Having Revis on the field gives the Jets the initiative against these teams... it forces their offense to respond to us rather than us having to figure out how to beat Marshall and Moss.
The Jets are 2-0 against those teams this year with minimal assistance from Revis. They went 1-3 with him on the field last year in the same matchups. The Dolphins didn't even have a good receiver, let alone an elite one when they beat the Jets twice last season. The Patriots beat them based on another receiver, aside from the great one Revis had blanketed. This is just not hard to see unless you really think Felix Millan should be batting second because he has great bat control. Seriously, Darrelle Revis isn't worth wins unless the rest of the team is playing excellently also. That's not the case with a great pass rusher. It's not the case with a great QB. It's not the case with a great safety. This isn't a stab at Revis, this is an acknowledgment of the fact that cornerbacks just aren't that important. You have to have competent corners out there but once they've met that fairly minimal test the added value becomes fairly small. The Jets could have done what they did last year with a good dozen #1 CB's playing the role that Revis did. They wouldn't have been great like he was necessarily but they'd have been more than good enough to help the Jets win the same number of games.
The secondary nearly cost us the Dolphins game and I wouldn't bet on a Revis-less secondary holding the Patriots again like they did last week. Again as pointed out earlier, different games, different circumstances, different reasons for losing. I really think you're just set in the way you feel football should be done. I pose to you why is it only possible for the front 7 to lift up the back 4? Why do you feel it can't work in reverse? I understand that it isn't traditional but that's because players like Revis come along close to never.
Marshall had a great game and you gotta hand it to him. But Revis would have kept him in check. First, he wasn't going to miss that tackle towards the end of the game where Pool saved the day with his tackle inside the 10. Secondly, Revis would not have let Marshall catch that long bomb down the middle over Cro and Leonhard. Revis not only runs with the WR, he also looks for the ball. And since that pass was a touch under thrown, it would have been an incompletion if not a pick. Thats HALF the yardage for Marshall. Trust me, Revis would have kept Marshall under 70 yards for sure. The effect would follow on to Bess and Hartlines production and Henne would have had himself a 200 yard performance. Thats how crucial Revis is to this D. See for yourself. Revis will cut off the big plays and make life miserable on short passing plays as well.
I think we will see a lower scoring game from the Fins, but their defense is clearly overrated considering they had only played the Bills and a struggling Vikings team before Sanchez carved them up.
the bills suck so i'm not really worried about them. but by the time we play minnesota were gonna have pace, revis, and holmes back. assuming we beat the lowly bills being 3-1 and getting back our best CB (best in the game) best pass rusher and an explosive SB MVP at WR all i can say is wow. and with kellers emergence as a force and sanchez looking like he is worthy of the nickname sanchize, i'm felling pretty dam good
Anyone who thinks we wouldn't have had a blow-out win with Revis there last night is crazy. Flat out crazy. Revis would have completely shut down Marshall by himself. That takes that entire side of the field away from Henne. Sure, Fisano, Hartline, and Bess would still have been there, but then it's Cro and KDub covering two of them 1-on-1, and Pool and Leonhard keeping an eye on the other (and Leonhard probably cheating up against the run/blitzing.) With Revis it would have been a completely different dynamic than there was last night. All coverages would have been shifted in the secondary, but the front 7 would have played at least as well, and probably sent more blitzes. By the way, the defense that the Jets put on the field last night barely, if at all, resembled the one that they fielded against Miami last year. I'll take Wilson over anyone not named Revis at corner for us last year. I'll take Pool over Rhodes any day. Add in Jayson Taylor, and guys like Pouha with another year of experience and it's hard to argue that this team has anything to do with the one that got beat by Miami last year.
The reason the back 4 can't lift up the front 7 is that if the front 7 are subpar the opposing team just runs you into the ground and the back 4's talents never come into significant play. The way that football works, and has worked forever, is that the action and impact of play begins at the ball and goes out from there. The first fault lines are right on the offensive and defensive lines. A team that has subpar players in the trenches on both sides of the ball will never get anywhere even if they have Peyton Montana-Brady at QB. A team with Trent Johnson-Hostetler however can occasionally win if they have great trench players on both sides of the ball. That said, you generally need a pretty good to great QB to win on a consistent basis in the NFL, because the QB touches the ball on every play and he starts right in the center of the field where most of the action occurs. The secondary is called the secondary because it is, well, secondary to the action on the field. Secondary in terms of its significance. Secondary in terms of its effect on play. Secondary in terms of how any given play will turn out. You can't make people who line up 15+ yards from the ball on every play at the edge of the action all that important in the general scheme of things. The guys who are important are all either close to the ball or in the middle of the field. One of the reasons that safeties are important is that they often lineup in the box, close to the ball and in the center of the field. The argument is made that Revis is particularly important because he frees up other people to take chances along the defensive front due to his ability to single cover great receivers. This argument has some merit because a defensive back lined up as a blitzer is by definition both close to the ball and near the middle of the field. The problem is that you have to assume that the Jets couldn't just do this without Darrelle Revis at CB anyway. You have to assume that another #1 corner would get burned so often that the Jets couldn't afford to blitz like madmen. There's no basis for making that argument based on how the Jets schemes work out. When the Jets blitz and get to the QB fairly quickly the QB tends to screw up and the Jets profit from the blitz. When the Jets blitz and don't get to the QB the QB tends to complete a pass and make them look bad. This was true last year and so far it's been true this year. There are very few plays in which the Jets both get to the QB and he completes a pass to his #1 WR. There are actually very few plays where the Jets get to the QB and he completes a pass to any receiver. When the Jets get to the QB the system works. When they don't it doesn't, and when they don't and it doesn't the ball tends to get completed somewhere even if Darrelle Revis is on the field. The only difference is the target that catches the ball. It's still a completion and a gash on the defense, the only difference is that Austin Collie is catching the ball and killing the Jets instead of Reggie Wayne. For the Jets defense to really pick up this season they need Calvin Pace back more than they need Darrelle Revis. They need to get to the QB and put pressure on him more often. With pressure Antonio Cromartie is just fine on the #1 WR and without pressure the QB will find a leak somewhere else on the field and hurt the Jets.
If the front 7 are subpar then your team is not a Super Bowl contender and the discussion shifts from challenging for a trophy to who the best draft prospects are in the upcoming draft. Your statement is accurate but not in the context of the Jets who don't have a subpar front 7 and are a Super Bowl contender at this point. The game is won and lost in the trenches. I get it. It's one of the most basic football principles right down to the pee wee level. I'm not disagreeing with any of that. Again, the argument needs to be taken in context and the context is that our front 7 under the Rex Ryan defensive system meets the criteria of good enough to win. It's certainly not the best in the NFL talent-wise with Jenkins and Pace frequently getting hurt and Gholston generally having been a bust up until the start of this season; but with that said it still produced as the #1 defense... how can that happen given the described circumstances? The explanation is a once in a lifetime cornerback who when healthy is almost impossible to beat. Cornerbacks are considered shutdown corners when they have a high stop percentage... Revis has the best by far. There is nothing insignificant about teams increasing ability to make all the trench wars go to waste with a single throw resulting in either a TD or a pass interference in the blink of an eye. There is nothing insignificant about teams that have the ability to use the passing game as an extension of the run with short throws that move the chains and simply can't be stopped. Both of these types of situations are front in center in the AFC East. Moss and Marshall are two of the best at the former scenario, and Welker is the best at the latter scenario. Not being able to stop them is akin to being inferior to them and bound to lose games to them. There is plenty of basis for the argument because the Jets backed off of their pressure bigtime when Revis left the game vs. the Patriots. Part of the reason the Jets were able to stop New England is because they changed their gameplan entirely and New England didn't adjust. The Jets didn't bring nearly as much pressure in the second half and still managed to keep Brady off balance. It's awesome that it worked but Brady of all people is smart enough to adjust for the next time we see him. One occurrence of this does not make for a consistent formula for success. The first part you described is a fact of football life - hit the QB and things will happen... let him sit there and nothing will happen. Again, if you have a defense that lets the QB sit there then you're bound to lose more often than win anyway... that is not the case with the Jets. In a game where 2 seconds can be the difference between a big play and a sack, Revis provides that extra time. For one, the Jets have fore-knowledge that there's a high probability the opposing offense will not go at Revis, it allows them to line up the rest of the defense where the ball is more likely to go... something they'll have a much easier time keying in on. Secondly the "feeling" of the Jets knowing what the offense is going to be doing gives the opposing offense pause which more often than not results in busted plays and bad decisions. This feeling is much more prevalent with Revis in then not because of the statistical advantages he provides. The best part is that when a team DOES try to hit Revis he almost always makes them pay for it. If you consider Cromartie's performance against Marshall to be fine then you're content with just an above average defense and not a great defense. Revis allows this defense to be great - he makes them a true Super Bowl contender.
Br4dw4y, in general I understand your point, but it only makes sense if you look at each point in a complete vacuum. Yes, Revis only takes away one guy. However, a secondary wide receiver gets shut down by Cromartie, rather than Marshall punking him. A tertiary wide receiver gets shut down by Wilson and possibly safety help. All other receiving threats can be handled by Pool, Leonhard, and possibly a linebacker, if necessary. That completely frees the front 5-7 guys to focus on attacking the QB on every play. That has a ripple effect too. Eventually QBs stop looking at certain targets at all. You're acting like Revis is just one guy and has no effect on anyone around him. Remember that guys like Sheppard and Lowery and Coleman were getting torched last year. Cromartie and Wilson are both superior to all three of those guys. That's without mentioning the significant upgrade that Pool is over Rhodes. It's a unit, and no man is any more important than any other in Rex's schemes. That's because he designs his schemes based on the personnel available. If Revis is on Marshall, Taylor gets 3 sacks yesterday.
I agree. I feel Bradway's opinionating about the relative lack of value in cb's is not based on facts. Talking about winning without Revis is silly. The Jets won yesterday because of the O. We are not used to seeeing this, but the Jet O won a game the Jet D was prepared to lose. And would have lost were it not for the O. And it was particularly the Jet secondary, especially Wilson, who nearly cost the team a win. Last year Revis's ability to shut down opposing and otherwise intimidating wideouts was huge, coupled with his making it possible to avoid double covering the opponent's wideout, in turn allowing the D to position safeties elsewhere. This should be beyond dispute. That Bradway suggests there is in fact some real dabate about it is.... Troubling.
Ok, my last try at convincing people that Revis presence or absence has been negligible in terms of it's effects on the Jets this season so far. The passing stats we've seen against Joe Flacco, Tom Brady and Chad Henne. 6 Quarters with Revis: Att - 59, Comp - 33, Yards - 427, TD's - 2, Int - 1 6 Quarters without Revis: Att - 59, Comp - 33, Yards - 423, TD's - 2, Int - 3 Anybody see us as better with Revis on the field so far than without?
Statistics don't tell the story of what happened to earn those statistics. In order for those two samples to matter they'd have to be under perfectly identical situations - but you know they're not. Statistics in football above all other sport are deceiving. Great for fantasy purposes but very deceiving when it comes down to the real truth of NFL comparisons.
Bradway, just looking at the statistics and not talking into account that the fact that Revis was not at the top of his game isn't telling the whole story. Also, to argue that the Jets were 0-2 with Revis last year and 1-0 without Revis this year doesn't tell the whole story. We understand that the OL and DL are extremely important, but that doesn't mean that the affect that Revis can have is negligible like you are trying to pursuade. The fact that the Jets lost last year with Revis against the Dolphins when Ginn had two return TD's and the Dolphins had another turnover TD does not minimize the affect that a CB has on a team. That type of circumstance happens so infrequently that to use that scenario as an example (as to why a CB is not important) is just not relevant. Also, the Jet barely won yesterday when it can be definitely argued that if Revis were in there AND HEALTHY that the Jets would have been much more successful on D and the game is probably not that close. Again, just because Pool happens to be able to make two excellent plays at the end to save the day, doesn't mean that a CB (like a healthy Revis) can't make a huge difference. You could see that Cromartie just doesn't tackle well on many plays yesterday. Revis is an excellent tackler. I think most people agree that the rush is the most important part of the D. I also agree that a top, top end pash rusher is more important than a "shut down" CB and should thereby make more money. However, to think that a player of Revis' caliber (assuming he can continue to play like last year) can't have a big effect on this team is missing the boat.
Ok, fine the Jets were much better with Revis on the field in the game and half they lost to the Ravens and Patriots and much worse with him off the field in the half and game they beat the Patriots and the Dolphins. At some point you need to look at what actually happened as opposed to what your preconceptions tell you. Joe Flacco went out of his mediocre performance against the Revis lead Jets and promptly had a truly terrible game against the Bengals, much worse than the one he had against the Jets, leading directly to his team losing the game. Tom Brady went 13 for 21 for 179 yards and 2 TD's in a half against the Revis lead Jets and then went 7 for 15 for 60 and 2 Int's when Revis left the game. Chad Henne had a huge game because they let him throw the ball 44 times. He had 49 throws coming into the game and they opened it up for him because they were down in the second half. He threw 27 times in the second half. The Dolphins scored ONE TD in the second half while they were throwing the ball 75% of the time. He went 14 for 27 for 226 yards in the second half with the lone TD. Hardly a game-breaking performance, just a function of how often the Dolphins were passing. They were either passing or in the wildcat on almost every play of the second half and what they came out with was a TD, 2 FG's, 2 punts and an Int. After the opening drive of the second half they came up with 2 punts, 2 FG's and an Int.
