That's pretty simple actually, the weakest position on the team is always going to be criticized and the weakest position is generally what loses games. For as long as I been a sports fan, I've never heard anyone say..." I wish we had a worse guy at ____." Our guys are not terrible, but except for Revis and Mangold we could improve at every position... and it's not just Jets fans, every fan of every team bitches about their weak spot no matter who what great players they do have.
No. And it shouldn't have taken WFH for you to see this. Jets sacked Brady 5 times and hit him multiple times during the playoff game. Pats lost. Now, that line didn't have WFH there either; Brady was protected for good 4-5 seconds during most drop backs. Brady had to hold the ball longer than that - which was why he ended up eating the grass. Now, imagine if the right side featured WFH. Do you HONESTLY think Brady would ONLY take 5 sacks that night? Before that, do you even think Patriots could possibly make the playoff that season? If you really think Brady could bail out WFH in the OL lineup, you are seriously deluded. WFH's effect is much more profound. Simply put, better WRs, RBs, TEs are luxury when your RT is as deficient as WFH. Especially when the play designs do not help the RT (as clearly evidenced during every year of Schottenheimer's reign) it literally dictates that the QB must get rid of the ball almost immediately. This also means that, the defense will always have the leverage against this offense, since they can always bluff and back off into coverage. Sanchez (or any QB protected by WFH for that matter) cannot possibly know if the defense is bluffing or not - his primary modus operandi is to get rid of the ball ASAP; he CAN gamble, but that's a losing bet, and you know it is a losing bet too. Ask Pennington if he could do a damn thing with Adrian Clarke protecting from the LG position. Very well - Adrian Clarke is the only thing worse than WFH; WFH at OG is worse than WFH at OT any day of the week. Ask Bradford if he agrees with you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back to the topic: LB corp is the new whipping boy? WTF? I have been crying out loud for OLB pick during draft for some time now. Jets LBs are old and slow. That much is a fact. I was merely pointing out (in other thread) if coaching could get more production out of that corp, but nobody in Jets LB corp strikes fear into the opposing offense. What's worse, shifty RBs gash them to no end, as evidenced by Eagles game, Raiders game, Denver (with Tebow) game and Bills game last weekend. And the LBs are not responsible for any of the debacle on the ground, you are suggesting?
As far as the running game goes, isn't it possible the Bills sold out on the running game and dared Sanchez to beat them, which he did. Maybe if the passing game continues to shine, that will open up the running game...
I would argue that Hunter might have retired Manning and certainly would have made Brady look a lot more ordinary. The day the Pats couldn't keep Shaun Ellis out of Brady's face was the day the Jets beat the Pats in the playoffs. Hunter made almost every guy he lined up against last year look like Shaun Ellis looked that day. There are only a few QB's in the NFL that are not dependent on their line to perform well and Peyton Manning and Tom Brady are not in that group.
While linebackers might be a "weakness" on our D, our D as a whole certainly is not a weakness on this team. It's a strength. The D doesn't have to be perfect. We're good enough to make a big difference despite the aging vets. You can safely assume OLB will be first round selection next year. I'm not worried about the D.
Yes because fans should never want their team to improve. Fans should never criticizing any team weakness. LB issues has been building up for a while now. And us fans seem to always give players like Bart Scott a pass.
So if we had hall of fame QB's we would be better? would have never guessed that... Big Ben probably could made the most of what we had last year. It was a tough situation where most QB's would struggle.
I agree, been hoping for a top OLB via draft or FA. I've been saying for last 2yrs we need to get younger. This is nothing new. They haven't, except this yr at least they're taking a shot with DDavis. Still going to need another look next year. It wouldn't surprise me if 3 of our starting 4 are gone. Maybin will never start for us. Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF700T using Tapatalk 2
pretty much exactly what went wrong last season. hunter wasnt a scapegoat in the truest sense of the word, he really was a big problem.
also, like some other people are pointing out, basically the entire second half was garbage time. you dont really give a shit anymore once youve won the game that easily. this game was a blowout. the score is only as close as it is (still not even a close game) because we played prevent and the bills are a professional football team with a lot of pride regardless of their talent level. im not saying its good that the d toned it down, but before garbage time we were just destroying them.
our LBs are in their twilight years, no doubt, and yes, they will be replaced. But last year BT was out most of the year and Pace was playing on a broken foot most of the year. Plus Scott was 20 pounds over weight and Maybin was 20 pounds under weight. All that's been corrected plus we added DDavis to the mix. Plus we added Landry in run support. 2012 will be fine, but beyond that we all know Scott will be replaced by Davis and BT will start mentoring his replacement in 2013. Pace's turn will be 2014. After that, Revis will be approaching 30 and Rex will start looking for his replacement!
Rex knows this. It's why you are seeing more 4-3 sets than in the past. It's why you are seeing them give Ricky Sapp every chance to try and get on the field.
well i for one was chirping all offseason for an infusion of speed and youth to the LB corp. the recent draft was a great opp for that. BUT u cant do everything and that would've meant no coples and likely no hill. the jets painted themselves into a bit of a corner (no pun) and had several positions to upgrade and not just LB. if coples and hill keep performing how can we bitch about it now. hopefully they continue their work, the safeties perform well, and next year we can really target LB and essentially do what belichek did - rebuild the unit in one draft.
Only a new whipping boy if you haven't been attention to anything except the WFH drama which sums up OP pretty well. Fans have complained since last season the LB core is slow. When McFadden blew the doors off this D everyone had an "oh shit" moment. Then it continued against the speed of Eagles RB. After the first game, we saw it again against the Bills. The LB crew isn't scrutinized for no damn reason. Same way WFH wasn't scrutinized or made into a "whipping boy" without reason.
Of our three defensive units, the linebackers are arguably the weakest of the three. That doesn't mean that our linebackers are terrible.
+1 This thread is a "the sky's falling" panic thread. It's clear our secondary and D-Line are stronger than the LBs, but the OP stating that the Lbs are the"whipping boy" is overreacting. The addition of Davis adds to the depth, but the Jets will have to address the OLB postion in the future with the aging Thomas and Pace.
