A thought or two or 10 from tonight's game My thanks to Newsday?s Chris Mascaro for keeping the live blog of tonight?s game in this space entertaining and interesting. Now get out. The Jets are off Sunday AND Monday so we'll have ample time here in the next couple days to go through the sights, sounds and scenes from the Meadowlands tonight. A few things: * What wasn't to like about Favre? He went 5-for-6 for 48 yards and Dustin Keller raved about the speed with which that four-yard touchdown pass arrived. The throw to Jerricho Cotchery on the run for 19 yards three plays before that was a beauty. Obviously, you don't get carried away about 5-for-6, but considering, as Favre said, "Ten days ago I was doing yard work," Jets fans should be enthusiastic about next Saturday against the Giants. * No limits on Keller. A reader asked me in the comments section a couple days ago whether Keller would get a chance down by the goal line because he's not a traditional bulky tight end. We saw tonight he's still an advantage down there. On his four-yard touchdown pass, Keller completely lost Redskins linebacker Rocky McIntosh on the quick down and out route he ran. Keller also hauled in a 22-yarder from Brett Ratliff in the third quarter, a play down the sideline we've seen 100 times in camp. Ok, not quite 100 but you get the idea. * Hello, Kareem Brown and Kenwin Cummings. The defensive linemen, who both stood out at various times last week in practice, tied for the team lead in tackles with six each. And a day after I wrote in our live chat the linebacker Cody Spencer had almost no chance at making this team, he registered two sacks. Still a long shot for Spencer but nights like this give him a shot. * I watched Vernon Gholston get completely stood up by Redskins left tackle Chris Samuels in the first quarter, but Gholston did make a couple of plays. In the second quarter Gholston chased down Rock Cartwright near the sideline and held him to a two-yard pick up, and on the next play he dropped back into coverage and shoved Mike Sellers out of bounds after the fullback made the catch for just a two-yard gain. A great night? Far from it but not a non-existent one either. * Another good game from rookie cornerback Dwight Lowery, who had five tackles - second-most on the team - but more significantly, was in the game on the Jets second series. Could be this year's Revis. And I?m starting to think he might start opposite him. * Nice game from Jesse Chatman, who missed much of the first week and a half of training camp. He had 11 rushes for 45 yards tonight and caught one pass for six yards. * Kellen Clemens must throw like Tim Wakefield. He by far sees the most dropped passes in practice and he was victimized by four drops tonight. Two of those balls would have been for first-down yardage. That said, Ratliff gave the team a chance to win at the end. That battle for No. 2 might have just become neck-in-neck. * Mangini could barely contain his disgust with Mike Nugent for missing that 23-yarder that would have sent the game to overtime. The fact no one booed - or no one I could hear anyway - when the ball hit the left upright tells you how desperately people were for the game to end. But Mangini, correctly, is fast-forwarding to the sure-to-be close games his team will be playing this year and hoping he doesn't have a kicking problem on his hands. "Missed field goal to win the game from the five-yard line," Mangini said, momentarily lapsing on what the score was at the time of the miss. "You've got to be able to execute that play. That's standard operating procedure. I thought we'd go to overtime. I'm disappointed." * And as you can see my ?few things? turned into a longer post than expected. I?m virtually alone ? aren?t I always ? in the press box now, and Jets PR chief Bruce Speight just commented from upstairs, ?We?re not writing War and Peace here.? I deserved that. Goodnight.
I'm with Boland on a few of these. Kareem Brown made a bunch of tackles at the line of scrimmage. Between him and Pouha, we might have some decent D-Line depth. Gholston spent a lot of the night in coverage. He didn't defend any passes, but his guys got no YAC. He's got great speed to the sideline. Hope to see some pass rush soon. Lowery is at least pretty solid. Had a nice break-up on a quick go route covering (blanketing) Devin Thomas. Solid in run support, NO PENALTIES. Chatman ran like a man possessed when he got the ball. Running HARD. I kept expecting him to fumble because he just kept getting hit and wouldn't go down. Never happened, though. At this point, I'd say he's got his spot locked up. I was thinking the same thing about Clemens. Nobody else was dropping passes (until Raymond at the end). I wonder if he throws a nasty ball. He may need to play against the third-stringers next week to get his confidence up.
