1. Braylon Edwards is/was a better fit for the Jets than Holmes. Personalities and baggage aside, Braylong Edwards physicality, vertical threat and speed were a better fit for the ground and pound Jets than Holmes currently offers. I am not saying that Braylon is the better reciever. Rather, his blocking helped the run game, deep threat allowed us to play action out of the run and his its undeniable he and sanchez shared a rapport thats yet to develop between our qb and any of the current recievers. Lets not forget, the Jets made two straight AFC title games; one prior to our trade for Holmes. If we dont get back this year the argument can be made that we regressed at the WR position. Jets miscalculated this one. 2. Our safety's are terrible. When was the last time Jim Leonard made a play? He is a solid team guy, a feel good story, but its almost as if the Jets are playing 11 on 10 at times. He is not big enough to crowd the box to aid in our run defense and he lacks the speed and range to make impact plays in the passing game. Eric Smith is an ideal special teamer but outside of that role, he has been a huge liability in pass coverage. he is seemingly victimized by opposing TE's week in and week out. Welker got him last week. Witten abused him in week 1. Even the legendary kevin boss made him look silly a couple of times. The jets cannot expect to have a great defense when 1/3 of the unit is severely lacking in talent. 3. The defensive line is not the problem. Pouha/Devito/Wilkerson are as steady as it gets. The rookie has impressed. Ellis has not done much for the Pats and it was no guarantee that Jenkins would have remained healthy coming off two surgerys. MR. T got his one right. 4. Wheres LT? I understand the JETS wanted to force Greene into the featured role and to limit LTs carries to sustain him over a long season. However, at what expense? You cannot teach vision/instinct to a running back. LT has lost a step but his vision and manueverabiltiy is still impressive. His ten yard run against the pats in the first quarter was probably one of our better runs of the season. Green looks slow, lacks burst, and his lack of vision is hurting us. He is best suited for punishing a tired defense. The jets needs to flip their roles back to what carried us to the last two AFC title games. Give LT/Mcknight the early carries and then wear the opposition down with Greene in the Fourth 5. Do the Jets know how to run a no-huddle? Where is the urgency? The patriots broke our spirit once they switched to the no huddle in the 3rd quarter. Our offense looks so much better when the jets are the agressor. Whether its coming from behind down two scores vs. the Pats or desperation mode against the Raiders, put sanchez in the no huddle and our passing game looks 100x better than it does coming out of the huddle. I think it has alot to do with Sanchez being his own worst enemy. In the no huddle, theres less time to think, worry and process all the b.s shotty is feeding him. He looks looser, takes more chances and surprise, scores TD's. 6. We are lucky we are not 1-4. Were it not for Romo shitting the bed in the fourth and Joe McKight's blocked punt, this season could have been over by now. We are ironically enough lucky to be where we are in th standings. 7. With that said, all is not lost. We made the playoffs in REX's first year despite having TWO SEPERATE THREE GAME LOSING STREAKS. Think about that for a minute. The seaon was considered over at two different points. We survived that crisis and I have no doubt we'll get through this one. Keep faith Jets Fans.
This season has basically become a rebuilding year.I know some will never admit it but yes it has,even Kris Jenkins believes so.
Holmes is a very good receiver. You're right that he lacks the ability to stretch the field that Edwards had but I would have kept Homes over Edwards as a pure reflex reaction to the difference in production over their careers. The mistake was in spending all of the early part of free agency focused on a player, Nnamdi Asomugha, who demonstrably was not going to help the Jets much this season and allowing Edwards to get away and the offensive line depth and holes to go unaddressed. I believe Leonhard's saving tackle at the 3 yard line against Dallas is what won the game for the Jets. A score there and the Jets are down 2 TD's again in the 4tth quarter and it is all over. I'm not sure who had coverage on Witten but I know the tackle lead directly to the Jets winning that game. Smith is a classic tweener, he's not big enough to play linebacker and he does not have the coverage skills to play safety. What the Jets get out of him is a safety who hits like a truck but the problem is the NFL is legislating that quality out of the game. He needs to be replaced on the defensive unit. As you point out he is a good special teams guy. Not a problem but not a strength either. There's no part of the defense right now that is strong as a unit. The DL is good against interior runs but bad at getting pressure on passing downs. The linebackers are bad at setting the edge and slow to recover when somebody gets too the second level. The secondary is porous, takes too many penalties and gives up too many long gainers over the middle. LT is probably our best asset on offense right now as a 3rd down back. It's not clear that he can do a lot more than that at this point and certainly not behind that line. Sanchez was shut down last week by design. The offensive staff clearly feels that he is one of the major things holding the offense back. As long as the offensive staff remains in place that is not likely to change. As an example his ability to change plays at the line was taken away because the Jets felt it was detracting from his overall play. Yep. This team will need a major turnaround to have any shot at the playoffs. They are clearly nowhere near as talented as the 2010 Jets were. I think the odds are that Buffalo is the second team to make the playoffs this year unless they pull a Broncos move and go 0 for the second half of the season.
We need to get rid of the white safety, Leonard, and the black safety, Smith. Both are liabilities for us at this point. I guess that every coach is looking for the next John Lynch.
I like Jimmy Leonard but I will agree he has lost a step this year but that may be systematic of our overall performance this year. Smith is either outstanding or like 2 months too late. John Lynch: Good player but I could never warm to him and he became a cheap shot as he got older;the fact he was buddies with Herm Edwards certainly curried my judgement of him.
While I agree with most of your premise, playing the what if game is senseless. What if Cro didn't fumble the kick off against Oak. What if our defense made a stop against the pats. Could we be 4-1 right now as well?
I have said this over and over to my friends, I am not sure why they let Braylon go, but I will admit I think it's unfair to judge if this was the right move or not until the end of the season. Also with the play of the offensive line and Greene it seems "we"(people who wanted to keep Bray) have an unfair argument, either way I do agree with you but I think it is not at the top of our list of problems. I am not sure if they ever will, but in one of our "easier" games or in a game if we get up and have a nice lead, why don't they let Revis and Wilson play CB and give Cro a shot at FS? It seems like his skill set would be better suited as a ball hawk as opposed to an okay 2nd Corner, for us, right now. I wonder this one too, so you are not alone. I'm not saying this in a doom and gloom the season is over kind of way, but things simply are not working. So why not try some new things ? How much can it hurt to let LT start and game a get 6-10 carries in the first 1 or 2 series. LT and McKnight would be imo, a nice change of pace and possibly with Greene running on a tired defense he will gain some yards and more importantly gain some confidence. ( I do not know how much confidence he has or doesn't have, but to the untrained eye he doesn't look too confident in himself or the line) Someone, anyone with a better understanding of the offense and offensive schemes in general can you please answer this one for me ? He seems so much more at ease with 2 or 3 calls , and given the ability to just play. I do not think all is lost, but I do believe the big difference this year is there is a 2nd team in our division that could take away that 5th or 6th slot we have "owned"
It's as much an issue for the offensive staff that was supposed to have him prepared to play in a system he could execute well as it is for Sanchez himself. If somehow Sanchez winds up out of the picture while Schotty and Cavanaugh and company remain the Jets are likely to be bad on that side of the ball for a long time.
I couldn't agree more. Holmes needs a big body on the other side of the field to complement his skill set. He doesn't have that body that can run a slant over the middle, get hit hard, and still hold the ball. I know he ran a number of slants last yr, but I don't remember him getting pounded like Edwards did and still hold the ball. He isn't the prototypical #1 and he's not as good as Steve Smith was a few years ago when he was a legit #1 week in and week out. I still think holmes will pan out and was a good signing, but maybe not until there is a big body that hasn't been in prison for the last 2 yrs on the other side of the field. The no huddle has been non existent this year because of the o line issues as well as the lack of receiver talent. (Mason + Plaxico '11) < (Braylon + Cotchery '10)
One of the most rational posts I've seen in a while. I agree on the DL. That is probably one of the few areas where we are arguably slightly better than last year. I feel like the Jets are perpetually weak at Safety. When is the last time we had a Pro Bowler at that position?? Victor Green was probably close to that level but aside from that I'm struggling to think of any studs we've had at that position.
The Jets don't put value at safety and haven't for awhile. They do pay safeties well but they don't use high draft picks on the position and nobody in their right mind let's a great safety hit free agency.
Def agree with needing new safeties. I like leonard and smith but they don't have the speed and explosiveness. Safeties covey a lot of ground speed and strength is a must. They can be covering 40 yards down or coming in to knock the rb on his a$s
I was in favor of keeping Braylon over Holmes and I posted those feelings months ago. To me the choice came down to Braylon being much more physical as a reciever and blocker ... and also better at ball security. I like Holmes but Braylon was a better fit for our offense and small, quick recievers like Holmes are much easier to replace. Instead of trying to replace Braylon with Plax, I can't help but wonder how we would look with Braylon, Kerley and Cotchery as our top 3. I hope that Plax comes around soon and makes a monkey out of me. I was watching Javid Best the other night and it really made me reconsider Shonn Greene. I know they're different types of runners but the quickness and explosiveness of Best just shot off my screen. You don't see that from Greene, even when he gets good yardage. He'd be more effective if we were to use him to wear the defense down behind a strong O-line and then reap some dividends in the 4th quarter. If we're not going to be willing/able to do that, I'd like to start seeing McKnight get a lot more touches and hopefully he can break a few long ones.
The issue with Greene, aside from the fact that he is injury prone, is that he really takes a few steps to get going. He's got a long upper body with a lot of area to get tackled and he has trouble powering out of a crowd. If he gets going though, just a little space to move into, then he's really hard to bring down because his legs really churn when he runs. Basically take 4 inches off of Greene and you have Maurice Jones-Drew but MJD has less to tackle in a crowd and can get his center of gravity lower.
Rebuilding what exactly? The corners won't get any better. The offensive line won't get better. The d-line save Wilkerson won't get better. The linebackers won't get better. The receivers won't get better except Kerley. Rebuilding with veteran players :rofl::rofl::rofl:
