This game was decided solely by the fact that you cannot put a bad offensive line out there against one of the best front 7's in the NFL and expect to survive. Did I like Mark Sanchez performance tonight? Not at all. He reminded me a lot of David Carr with the expansion Texans, and for the exact same reasons. No time to throw at all on most plays. Getting the crap beat out of him randomly within a second or two at the outside of taking the snap. Having a bad offensive coordinator consistently set him up with plays that would have been negligible in value if the Jets actually had decent offensive line play, etc. The problem that the Jets face right now is a simple one: they do not have an NFL-caliber offensive line in the absence of Nick Mangold. They barely are NFL caliber when he's on the field because both Wayne Hunter and Matt Slauson are weak links. Given that problem they can't possible run the offense that Schotty wants to run at this point. They barely can run it effectively when they have a good line, it is DOA with a bad one and probably so with the mediocre line that is a fact for the Jets even when Mangold returns. The solution is really simple. The Jets need to simplify the offense dramatically, identifying the things they do well and throwing out all the trash that Schotty has installed over the years. They need to put the ball more in Sanchez hands and let him make simple decisions as opposed to the never-ending mindfuck that running Schotty's offense entails. Brett Favre was right when he shrugged off Schotty's system and just began running a ton of slants, outs and throws up the seams. The Jets actually looked dynamic for a change because they had somebody doing very simple and effective things in the passing game. The Jets actually look dynamic in the 2 minute offense when Sanchez has to do the same. Get rid of most of the motion. Get rid of the long snap counts that take the play clock down below 5 seconds on almost every play. Get rid of the mindfuck. Play football. That's what the Jets need to do and it would be better done in the absence of Brian Schottenheimer who has too much invested in the old system to possibly make a simpler one work. He'd wind up snapping back to his old system because it's his. If we lose Mark Sanchez as a bust this team is back in the shit again and we'll spend a half decade trying to shovel out of it.
