Probably doesn't work under the cap (all the deferred money from a signing bonus accelerates if you trade a guy so it would be a huge 2012 cap hit).
I don't know about the bolded part. I think it's a chicken/egg conversation. I do know that you're severely underrating some of our other front seven players. The fact that you didn't even mention Bryan Thomas shows that. Now, I hated (HATED!) Bryan Thomas for a long, long time, but I just can't ignore what an impact he's had stopping the run. He's a damn good two-down OLB, and as much as I want to dismiss the cactus, I can't dismiss his willingness to occupy tackles and seal edges. He did that exceedingly well in 2010, and that's a damned important part of a quality run defense. As for the non-Pouha's on the d-line... well, I think Shaun Ellis remains one of the most underrated players on the team. I don't know what else I can really say about Ellis that others haven't said better. As for DeVito... I recommend you check out pro football focus' article on him:http://www.profootballfocus.com/blog/2011/04/17/secret-superstar-mike-devito-new-york-jets/ I think this is another problem. I don't think a lot of Jets fans will ever be able to respect a front seven that doesn't house a sackmaster. Our OLB's did an excellent job stopping the run. Would it have been a better front seven with Clay Matthews or D-Ware? Sure, but that doesn't mean it wasn't still very good. Were extra defenders sent in for run support? I'm not really sure about that. I know we sent SHITLOADS of guys at the quarterback on obvious passing downs, but I really can't comment on the safeties and corners we sent in to stop the run.
The Difference between 1 and 2 is huge compared to the difference between the others. ...and he was injured for a lot of the season.
^We had extra defenders in there to help the run D for a good part of the season. I find it a little weird if we had more defenders playing on the line in passing situations, and pulling those defenders back in rushing situations. Just by principle, that theory has fail written all over it.
The Jets almost never played 8 in the box when they were playing 3-4 (or 4-3). You're just wrong here. EDIT: When they're in sub packages, which is often, the Jets have tons of guys in the box but a lot of them are defensive backs. The Jets front 7 is a terrific, terrific group of run stoppers who doesn't need-or get-much help from the secondary.
any fan would take revis on their team and cromartie is an upgrade over at least half the leagues other 2's if he went anywhere else.
Yeah, the OP's article leaves out imo what is a huge part of having great corners, which of course by great means able to play man coverage without much help, and that is such players allow the rest of the D to better cover other assignments. Having two cb's capable of covering the other team's 1st and 2nd receivers means the other nine players on D can focus on other assignments, like stopping the run. In other words you are absolutely right Cro and Revis make the rest of the D look better.
And I am talking about the same packages. It doesn't matter if they were nickel backs or dime. How many times did we see Ihedigbo generate pressure and get a couple of sacks?My whoe argument is, if we have 8 players playing on the LoS (3 DL, 2 LBs, and 3 CBs), it doesn't matter if the corners or secondary drop back to coverage after the snap. The fact that they were playing on the LoS means they wanna shut down the run and encourage teams to beat us in the air. Playing a simple press coverage also supports the run D. Once the D is playing press coverage, the burden is always on the secondary. Everybody knew that we didn't have a great pass rush. It was talked about almost the entire season. Without pass rush, secondary's job becomes tougher. We had to send blitz to generate some pressure, and blitzing means fewer coverage guys. So we generate pressure, but we now put pressure on our corners. In that case, if our top two corners gave up less than 40% burn rate, that is pretty commendable.
I was also surprised that Cro made the top 5 especially because he plays better in the bump-and-run and isn't great playing off-coverage. Our front 7 was not as good in 2010 than it was in 2009 as far as creating pressure, so that statement was a little misleading saying the were "so good" the DBs didn't have to work as hard. Pass defense should be credited to our corners last year bar none. I could see if we had a killer pass rush and led the league in sacks giving the DBs less credit but some games it was almost non-existent
I don't limit it to the front seven and lack of a pass rush, either. I like Leonhard, but let's face it, after Revis and Cro, it's a huge drop off in terms of talent to the whole rest of the secondary rostsr. in other words it's not just the front seven who don't give much support to the starting corners.
