Was on the Jets podcast recently and gave his take on some of the things that are happening right now with the Jets and the NFL. Very insightful but here's - Said before the season this team would win 10 games and make the playoffs because it was a good team and people thought he was nuts then but now they agree. Last year he knew in camp this team wouldn't accomplish anything because it was a bad team. - Signing guys like Revis, Carpenter, Skrine, drafting Leonard, were easy decisions. You measure a FO by the not so easy decisions they have to make. - Talked to a respected secondary coach before the season, told him Skrine is the best nickel back in the league. - Jets should be 4-0. Lost to a very beatable Philly team. - Wasn't surprised that they lost, Eagles made expected changes and adjustments early in the game that caught the Jets flat footed. Mistakes on special teams, you have to box Sproles in, you can't punt him the ball. Punt the ball out of bounds if you have to, I don't care, just don't give him a chance. Jets didn't do that. - Eagles put their best pass rusher on Breno, Breno didn't get any help, no chipping etc. and it hurt the Jets. They just got outcoached that day. If they met again Jets would win. - Touched on some issues. Challenges are horrendous this year, wrong every time, they weren't even close. Jets have a guy on the staff who volunteered for this job when they led the league but they don't use him anymore. Big mistake. Clock management very average, talked about the CLE game where Marshall made a circus catch to bail out the Jets. Also vs Dolphins late in the game instead of running the ball and milk the clock Jets continue to drop back and pass which didn't work. Fitz bailed us out by scrambling. Punt team didn't milk the clock when they could have multiple times, said he was embarrassed. - Likes how consistent Todd is, the way he handles the team. Believes in his "46-0" defense. 4 linemen, 6 DB's, man to man coverage with FS over the top and then throw blitzes at you. Jets have 2 great guys that can get it done: Skrine and Demario Davis. - Uses his best players the right way. Throw it to Marshall, he catches everything. Ride the wheels off Ivory. Without Ivory they're not good enough. Doesn't think a Powell or Stacy can get the job done. When Ivory is there he gets excited, loves what they're doing. Thinks Jets will get better at PA passing, use Smith better. Loves the consistency when it comes to addressing the things that aren't going well, how Todd tries to immediately get those fixed. Like the penalties. Gives him a very good grade so far, he's still a rookie headcoach. - Said this is Fitz' team right now but wouldn't committ to him for the entire season just yet, he can stall. His arm isn't all that good. Jets must use PA to Ivory more often, have Devin in the slot, have the safety come up and then feed Devin deep. Ryan doesn't do a good job of that. Still he's very smart, can scramble and make plays. Tough guy. Geno still a factor but they have the right guy. Have to pound the ball with Ivory, if they don't they have a problem on offense and the QB won't get the job done. - Said Special Teams isn't that important anymore in the NFL. Way less plays now (from 22 to 5 per game, without the FG plays). Teams adjust their rosters for that reason so there's a lot less talent. No use for special teams demons anymore like Larry Izzo. They make too much money. Now you see big linebackers that really are DE's, TE's, receivers that don't want any part of it. That's why special teams aren't that good anymore in coverage. - Said the PAT's are basically FG's now. Would adjust by placing the ball on the hash to make it easier for kickers. Kickers don't get it yet. Also teams don't have many padded practices, only 14. Didn't see one live FG period in camp with the Jets this year when he was there for a week. That's why you also see guys flying off the edge and getting close to blocking kicks and punts. Biggest reason though for the bad kicking and missed FG's etc. is that teams now want those young kickers with the big legs to force more touchbacks. And that again goes back to teams knowing they don't have good players on special teams to cover the kicks and make plays, so you want touchbacks otherwise you're in trouble. - Said back when he was coaching our ST unit he didn't even care where the kickoff landed, he knew he had a great group that would tackle guys inside the 20. Guys like Eric Smith, Brad Smith, Ihedigbo etc. would run down and kill returners. - Could have had the best ST unit in history when McKnight was returning kicks. Said Joe left a handful of easy kick return touchdowns on the field where Westhoff told him after watching the tape that something must have been wrong with his eyes or vision how he didn't see the holes. - Felt the Jets made a big mistake when they passed on WR Tyler Lockett in the 3rd round. Best returner since Devin Hester, would have taken Kerleys job as a receiver and returner from day 1. Jets are on the clock and he's sitting there and they trade down. Seahawks meanwhile give up everything to trade up for him and now they have a great weapon. - Doesn't want to coach anymore because of how irrelevant ST is these days. People don't care anymore. Always touchbacks, fair catches, punts out of bounds, no great returners, coverage units suck. There's no real talent. In order to really win you need a weapon on KR/PR, a Punter and a Kicker. - Back when he was coaching when playing the Pats he knew they'd score on the Jets but wasn't all that worried because now you have to kick to us. Said Belichick went crazy on the sideline and was all worried when they kicked the ball to us. That's pretty much it. I agree with him on pretty much everything except for the Tyler Lockett thing. We drafted Devin in the 2nd round so we weren't going to draft another receiver in the 3rd again. You could argue that drafting a pass rusher in round 2 and then maybe Lockett in round 3 would have made sense as well but you can spin it any way you want, we still got our 2 guys. Westhoff being a special teams guy obviously he wanted the return guy so I don't blame him all that much. I'm good with Mauldin and Devin.
I've got a ton of respect for Westhoff, the man knows the game of football. My brother in law saw him at the airport during TC and he said he loved Bryce Petty.
Yeah, that's very informative. I really liked his insight into the diminished importance of special teams. I'll have to start listening to this podcast.
Was a great ST coach and quite the character, but he's going into the Joe Namath zone for me. The game has clearly passed him by. Special teams are irrelevant now, but we should've taken Lockett in the 3rd because he's such a great special team player?
I agree that it would have been a strange pick, especially after we took Smith, but he's a tad biased as a ST guy. Take it with a grain of salt. His commentary is very insightful for the most part. Likening him to Namath is insulting.
Westhoff is great to listen too. Namath is good also but the game has passed him by. The 60's game looks almost nothing like the game today and that's even true for the pass happy AFL. Every now and then you get a team that has that 60's flashback look to it, like the greatest show on turf in St. Louis in 1999, but even then the players are so much bigger and faster now than they were back in the 60's. It makes it hard to compare eras.
Westhoff is currently one of the best media analysts out there imo... i tend to learn something, or gain new insight, every time i hear a long interview with him. and he's entertaining to boot. can't say that about many others, who never get deep into details behind their statements, and keep to 'pop' topics only. i get the irony behind the Lockett statement. but when he talks about the diminished importance behind ST's, i think he is mainly referring to demons and coverage units. you still need a K, a P, and a returner. their careers are quite young yet, but also have to admit that if you were choosing right now between Smith, Mauldin, or Lockett.........Lockett has contributed a whole lot more. so the statement isn't crazy at all, even if you disagree with it.
Good read, thanks for posting DaBallhawk. Special teams may be "irrelevant" but that hasn't stopped New England from always looking to upgrade their kicking game at every opportunity. Punting: as recently as 2010 New England drafted the first punter or kicker in that year's draft by drafting the nation's top punter Zoltán Meskó out of Michigan in the 5th round. And even then they didn't stand pat when they saw an opportunity to upgrade at punter only 3 years later by nabbing back-to-back Ray Guy Award winner Ryan Allen as an UDFA in 2013. Ryan's currently one of the best in the league. While you could say it was a salary dump ($1.3 million for Meskó vs. $405 k for Allen), it's worth noting that Meskó is now out of the league. The Jets? Going into their 3rd year with the 'other' Ryan, Chicago Bears retread Ryan Quigley. Placekicking: Adam Vinatieri, "Mr. Clutch" becomes a free agent in 2006 and New England wastes no time in picking Steven Gostkowski in the 4th round of the 2006 draft. While Nick Folk is a fine kicker, it was the Jets who had to go the waiver wire to secure one. Gostkowski? He's arguably the best kicker in the NFL. Now raise your hand if you were one of those TGG'ers who were clamoring for the Jets to draft Iowa State punter Kirby Van Der Kamp?
That's essentially what the Seahawks did. Also disagree on Joe. He's spot on with everything he says regarding the Jets.
i dont think we should have taken lockett, but i agree with him in that we should have address the kick/punt return position. when you have a qb like we do and rely on defense and the run game you need to have a guy who can change field position.
yup... i look at the pats special teams and i see: -a kicker who drills FGs and as like a 1000000% touchback rate -the best punt/kickoff coverage guy ive ever seen (which is saying alot since you never even notice that kind of thing) slater is like an automatic tackle every time 1 on 1 on punts -a great return game. edelman/amendola constantly change field position and are threats to score
But that is exactly what he said on a recent podcast. That he could not coach ST today. He understands the game, though. And he is extremely frank about the pluses and minuses of the present team. He is refreshing when he talks about players. He calls a JAG a JAG.
Good read. Thanks. That said - can Mac lure Westie out of retirement? I'd be real excited if he did just that.
Strange that he would say they aren't as important. Ask Darren Sproles about that. ST can decide games. Kickoffs have become almost irrelevant, because they always boot it out of the end zone, but everything else is still very important.
