The Jets have been very good to Chad. They compensated him very well, stood by him during numerous injuries. Chad has treated the Jets well, taking a big pay cut this past offseason, working very hard late into the night to study the opponent, dilligently rehabing from injuries, willing to give up salary to bring back Coles from Washington and being just the type of football focused leader the new regime covets. In all, it's been a good relationship. But these next three weeks will be Chad's last great chance to prove his worth. Forget the past, forget his work ethic, forget the shoulder operations. He's been here, more or less healthy, all season long. It's time to lead this team and lead it well. Tangini is watching. If he continues to throw bad interceptions against the type of crap defenses we will face the next three weeks, he's done. It's now or never, Chad. Unfortunately I think he knows this too and, as he's proved in the past, he's not reacting well to the pressure. But he still has a chance. The next three weeks will determine if he's the starter or backup for 2007....It's now or never
I agree with everything you said JetFighter. Good post! The only thing I might add is that Chad is trying to do this with almost zero running game. The JETS have no proven running backs and a poor run blocking line. I think the weight of trying to carry the team against tough defenses like Jax and the Bears causes Chad to do things he caracteristically doesn't do. He is still the best option at QB the JETS have at the present. I don't see us being 5-5 at this point with any of our other QBs.
Poor, poor excuse... RB's however good they might be, don't force the QB to make questionable calls into coverage and overthrow their receivers by 10 yards on a sideline route. You could have Dickerson in his prime back there, running behind a SB Dallas Cowboys line from a few years ago, and unless you're going to run him on every single play your QB will have to accurately throw the ball to his receivers. Chad hasn't done so........No more excuses....
Excellent post and right on the money. A strong finish gives Chad the nod going into camp in 2007. A weak finish probably walks him out the door. Just holding the line puts him right where he was going into this year's camp: looking over his shoulder at the younger guys and trying to fight them off.
I don't know how you can say he hasn't responded well to pressure. I would call this years training camp pressure. A running game does have an effect on a QB because he has to take chances he would not normally take otherwise it is 3 and out. I do not like all the finesse play calling and I think it is a problem. Chad hit Cotchery in the hands on the fade pattern against the bears and Coles dropped one against the pats. This is not on Chad and sure would help the offenses confidence. I think the Jets are the most successful when they are more basic in the offense. Look at the 1st half of the Bears game. Offense moved the ball well except when they tried a run outside or some other finesse play that lost yards. Good luck having a successful offense on 2nd and 15 and 3rd and 10. I agree Chad must play better, but he also needs to be put in a situation to be successful. At the beginning of the season, he was given praise for looking off safeties and making calls at the line, now hsi OC says he does that too much, and he gets killed for staring at a reciever. Make up your mind. I have a feeling that he is going to get run out of town and we are going to regret it. We will see.
No excuses. Chad's technique has been an issue for him recently, most specifically last week. Usually, when a QB throws high,(which chad did on just about every sodeline throw last weekend) he is throwing off his back foot and/or he is letting his elbow drop when he throws. This should be an easy fix for a veteran and I would expect a big week for Chad this week.
Chad has played less than 16 games the past two season due to injuries (and at least 4 of those games he played hurt). He has had two shoulder surgeries in those past two years. Unlike ACLs, there is NO established timetable for a successful recovery for a QB with one of these surgeries, no less two of the same nature. As there are basically few QBs that have had this injury, the lack of comparable data make it very difficult to determine where Chad is in the recovery process. Except for Jim Harbaugh and Dan Majkowski, I don't know of other QBs with the same injury/surgery/and comeback attempt. IIRC, Harbaugh is on the record that it took him a full year to regain his arm strength. The very real possibility is that Chad is as healthy now as he ever will be. Or perhaps if he is able to play a full year this year, have a "normal" (i.e. injury free) off-season to recover and a healthy pre-season next year he will be just as good as he was. However, after 10 games this year, it is very difficult to assess his recovery. For all we know, Chad is performing exceptionally considering what he went through...and given that no QB has successfully come back from this injury, this may be the case. If you want to fairly assess his performance, you really need to take into account this factor. And while you are add it, throw in the fact he is playing behind a new offensive line, with a RB-by-committee and using a new offensive system. Given all this, no one should be suprised by his up & down year. Next pre-season and early next year, providing things go well, will be a more accurate litmus test for Chad Pennington's future career with the Jets and as an NFL QB.
I don't disagree that Pennington is auditioning for the QB job the remainder of this season. I also agree that his decision making has been uncharacteristically questionable the past few weeks. Where I disagree is where you say he has not reacted well to pressure in the past. If you mean pressure from opposing defenses, no QB does. Watch the tape of the Indy-Dallas game or last year's Pitt-Indy playoff game and tell me how the best QB in football reacted to pass pressure. However, if you say that Pennington has not responded well to pressure situations, you are way off base. In 2002 he took a team that was dead to rights and won must game after must game down the stretch to lead the team into the playoffs. In 2004, with a torn rotator cuff, he won many big games down the stretch to put the Jets into the playoffs then won a playoff game on the road, something a Jet QB has not done since 1982. Then this year in training camp, coming off two shoulder operations, a contract renegotiation where he took a pay cut in return for incentives (betting on himself), and with the HC saying the QB competition was wide open, he won the job by a long shot. In essence, wit his career on the line, he came through. There is not much more pressure than that for a football player. We agree that his play has been subpar and he has to step it up or face losing his job or fighting for it next year. But I think he has handled such pressure in the past extremely well.
I think that I may speak for some of the others when I say, "Who gives a crap about what happened 4 + years ago?" The past is the past, what you did then was all well and good. Show me what you can do now. If you can't produce the same results in '06 that you were in '02- I don't view you as being the same player, and you should be on borrowed time, which we hope is the case here. I know a girl who was very hot in 2002- ran into her a week ago, she was about 400 pounds, with visible facial hair, wearing spandex and a baggy t-shirt, huffing and puffing as she went up a flight of stairs, holding onto the rail for dear life with one hand as she brushed Cheetos chips off her shirt with the other. Do you want her number?
I agree, current performance is the key. If Pennington continues this play, he will either lose his job or fight for it again next preseason. But as for not reacting to pressure - that is just inane. He fought for his football career this past year and put it all on the line and came back to a point that nobody thought he would. As for current performance, what about some of the other Jets??? When are the Jets benching Ellis????? His contract is larger than Pennington's and other than the play at the end of the Pats game last week, I haven't even realized he has been on the field since the playoff game against Pitt. Let's not make this argument for only one player. Ellis has been a complete and total bust ever since he got the big bucks. It's time he was sent packing. And haven't we seen enough of Bryan Thomas to realize that, after five years, he is what he is - a decent back up? And Moore also - how many penalties and missed blocks have we seen from him in the past two seasons to realize that he is not a starting NFL guard.
So do you wan't the fat lady's number? I totally agree with you that the team's performance thus far doesn't fall on his shoulders alone. Ellis has been a nonfactor thus far, Thomas hasn't shown me anything since preseason, and our overall pash rush, sans Kerry Rhodes, is non-existant. The CB position is a glaring hole, which concerns me greatly...And yes, Moore is still prone to those dumb penalties, which always seem to come at the most inopportune times. I would have added Robertson to the list, but he has dramatically stepped up his game in the last few weeks....
The Jet's rushing offense is averaging 112.1 yards per game, placing them 15th in the league. That by definition is not poor. THe Colts rushing offense is 19th in the league at 104.8 yards a game, but their quarterback has a 101 QB rating. Rushing doesn't give Chad a pass. Especially given his performance at the beginning of the year when we couldn't rush at all, and he had sterling 300 yard performances...
While I agree with you about throwing into coverages not being the running games fault, it does matter that the running game is sub-par and does not have to be respected. The bears were able to drop 7 in coverage and disguise zone and man coverages ALL game long because their front four did a sufficient enough job stopping the run. Yes accuracy has to be put on the QB shoulders, but the fact that Chicago (using this game cause of it recency) was able to blitz and put pressure on him in 3rd and 6, 3rd and 8 situations because the running game was average, does not help his accuracy. Chad needs to be able to step up in order to provide crisp accurate throws, he is not an arm thrower. In my eyes, its all a big circle, the running game aids the passing game which in turn aids the running game...its all about balance, Chad is not Peyton.
Thats because they were stacking the box and dropping 5, allowing Chad to pick them apart, just as he did when Curtis was rocking in '02.
I think the point of this post is that the above just doesn't matter. Tangini can't be in a position where their logic is "OK, he's not peforming, but he's had two shoulder surgeries. Therefore, given this, we should stick with him because chances are, he's performing very well given the surgeries". The fact is, they have a rookie who hasn't had two shoulder surgeries that they could start grooming...Chad has a shrinking window to prove his worth, surgeries or not
Four more losses is what it would take to bench Pennington from here on out in my eyes. I do not see it happening.
:rofl: Koz, am getting excited just sitting here. Sounds like the years have been very kind to her. I'll take the number!
At this point in time, Chad gives the team the best chance to win and is the best option. I am not saying he is the future, nor am I saying that he should be "given" a job next year because of what happened in the past. What I am saying is this: Provided he plays the rest of the year at a decent level, remains healthy, and gets a good injury-free off-season/pre-season under his belt, the team will be in a better position to assess his both his performance and future with the team. I do not advocate them signing him to a long term deal or handing him the starting job next year. But I do think the Jets would be foolish not to bring him back and give him the opportunity to win the starting QB job. The worst thing that happens for the Jets is not that he loses out to Ramsey/Clemens in the pre-season. If that happens, at least we have an answer. The worst thing would be to see this guy hit the street (given the time & money already invested in him) and have him light it up with another team simply because we didn't give him enough time to fully recover from his injury. This is not an ACL injury where there are time tables that we can use to asses his current progress. No one knows if/when he will be completely recovered...which is different than being medically cleared to play. Incidently Chad vs Eli's numbers --- Manning QB, NYG 193 334 57.8 2202 6.59 50 16 4.8 13 3.9 20.0 152 77.5 Pennington QB, NYJ 177 286 61.9 1888 6.60 71 10 3.5 11 3.8 22.0 113 76.8 Anybody calling for Lorenzen yet? And Eli is healthy...
