I was thinking about the talent on the defensive units of both the Ravens and the Jets under Ryan's stewardship. The Ravens' talent was located at the safety position with Ed Reed and along the DL with Ngata, Gregg, and Suggs (who is basically a defensive end that stands up. They were also strong at the LB position with Scott and Lewis. Their only deficiency was at the CB position, McAlister was last good in 2006. Ryan worked with this to make a consistently dominant defensive unit. The Jets, by contrast, have an amazing talent at CB in Revis. They also have a much more talented (and younger) LB corps. They have a good, but not great, DL, and lack talent at the safety position. Ryan has made this unit dominant as well. Ryan has employed a scheme that once took advantage of a safety you could allow to roam free and a DL that could get pressure without blitzing. He's now employing a blitz happy scheme that takes advantage of Revis' lockdown ability and compensates for the deficiencies of the DL. It's pretty impressive when you think about it, he's changed his defensive approach/philosophy and been successful with it in both instances. This is something that Cato and I were talking about and I figured was worth posting, it is the offseason after all.
I don't care for your opinion Giants fan, gtfo. Nah but you make a good point. Rex just has a knack for the defensive side of the ball. He knows how and when to capitalize on his talent. In this case, the DBs are the Jets strong suit, and it shows because the defense is so dependent on lockdown coverage => coverage sacks. Keeping the offense guessing by disguising blitzes and using exotic overloads helps too.
I think it's a testament to Ryan as a defensive mind. He's not a one-trick pony. It also shows that, if his current scheme with the Jets were to be ineffective, he would be able to adapt.
Dont sleep on the safety posistion. Pool is no Ed Reed but he is a good safety and Leonhard is a solid SS. Saying the Jets lack talent at the safety posistion isnt really fair.
I think he means in comparison to our best CB tandem in the NFL and one of the top LB corps they don't compare, but in general we definitely have solid and talented safeties.... just not superstars.
Yea Leonhard has definitely been solid, and i keep hearing everyone say great things about Poole, and Smith proved to be servicable last year.
It is very Parcellesqe. Parcells was always great at scheming to the strengh of his team. So many coaches try to play a scheme and force players into it. Parcells was always good adapting his scheme to the strength of his players. It seems like Rex may have this trait as well. Shottenhimer tries to force players to play his scheme. As the year went on Rex had a positive influence on that too. You could see they started to move to quick slants and out and an occasional bomb. It worked great. Seems so simple but so many coaches struggle with it.
I'm not going to go and say that we have one of the best safety tandems in the league because we don't. It's still solid though and as long as Pool plays up to his potential we should be fine. Too bad "Ed Reed"-type players don't grow on trees, eh?
I made this point a while back to those who were convinced we shouldn't draft a DL/LB who specializes in rushing the passer. Many were/are convinced that Ryan is fixated on our current scheme, whereas I made the same argument, that he simply employs the tools he has in the most efficient way possible. We ended up taking Wilson because he was a f***in' steal at 29, but had there been an equally talented pass-rusher available, I think Ryan would have went that route. I didn't use/analyze the Ravens scheme, but our points were the same. I think you may be overrating our DL, and underrating Jim Leonhard a bit. Our DL is hardly average, unless you can count Jenkins to be back at 100% (even if he is in on rotations), which is probably unlikely, as much as it hurts to admit. And I know FS is a question mark ATM, but I think we are rock-solid everywhere else in our secondary. Jim Leonhard is a beast - really, I f***in' love the way this kid plays football. The additions of Pool and UDFA Warren, IMO, puts S above DL ATM, in terms of talent. Good post. :up:
I think that Ellis is a pretty good 3-4 DE and Jenkins is a beast, though he isn't on the field nearly as often as I would like. JL is a very good safety, maybe he'll be better this year without having Kerry Rhodes playing next to him. As for the safety position, I was only comparing last year's safety play. For everything Leonhard did well, Rhodes did something poorly. I expect the safety to play to be average at worst this season. Cool to know we had the same idea, even if yours was well before mine.
Imagine if the Jets had a DE that demanded double/occasional triple teams every snap? Thats what I wish Gholston could be half of.
Holy guacamole. This is just wacky. Ray Lewis may be the most talented linebacker in the history of football. And the Ravens obviously had the younger Bart Scott, no? Who was your perceived slacker in that Ravens linebacker corps? Adalius Thomas?
The Ravens under Ryan were an amazingly sound defense with most of the talent right up the middle of the field: Ngata and Gregg are both NT capable and effectively gave the Ravens two very strong interior linemen although Ngata lined up at end. Lewis and Scott were very strong at ILB, and Ed Reed was the best free safety in football for a bunch of years. Suggs gave them a ROLB to pass rush who also put his hand in the dirt in some formations allowing Ngata to move in some and give them a great presence in the middle of a 3-4. The Steelers have their talent concentrated in the NT, 4 LB's and Troy Polamalu, which is almost the same thing. They always have journeymen 3-4 ends in the Parcells mold, there just to make sure that the line of scrimmage stays horizontal on each play and vertical gaps don't open up. The Jets under Ryan have a good mix of the two philosophies but they need to find the hammer at safety. Revis and Cromartie and Wilson will make a big impact, as Revis and Sheppard and Strickland did last year, but the Jets really need somebody to step up at safety and make some plays. They won't get to the next level without that and people wil eventually figure out how to deal with Revis and company in the absence of that. The Dolphins gave everybody a pretty decent blueprint to follow last year and teams will be using that plan to minimize the great corners in the absence of a headhunting safety.
Harris is more than good enough to fill the Lewis role in Ryan's 3-4. The Jets don't use him the way the Ravens used Lewis, effectively giving him no responsibilities on most plays and letting him roam free to wreak havoc but if they did use him that way he'd have a lot more tackles than he does. He had 90 tackles in 9 starts his rookie year and has not gotten back to that number per game since. He does have more sacks, more forced fumbles and the same number of Int's that Lewis had his first 3 years and in substantially less starts. Don't get me wrong, Harris is not Ray Lewis but he's a damn good ILB and he'll be a consistent pro bowler if he stays healthy. And yeah my Michigan maize and blue glasses are nearly as strong as my Jet greens when I see something I like.
A agree with the fact that a good coach has to adapt his "style" to the personnel he has. Rex has stated numerous times that he wants to "put players in a position to succeed." If you are going to live and die with one philosophy as a coach, you really have to have the correct personnel in place to fit that style. If you are new to the job, that may take quite some time, if ever. I imagine he and Pettine sitting around a white board coming up with some crazy, creative ways to use the different defensive personnel. I'd like to be a fly on that wall.
maybe it's rex's ability to create a #1 defense that plays to his player's strenghts that has allowed tanny to low-ball revis.
What? The Dolphins put up about 150 yards of offense when we played them second time around. They couldn't even follow their own blueprint!
This reminds me of the time Rex was asked about Jonathan Vilma. To paraphrase, he said he never would have traded him but would have changed his defense to work around the skills of a very talented LB. In just about every way imaginable Rex Ryan is the anti-Mangina and I love it!
