I'm not knocking WSW's Middle Ground point. I'm sure this has to be achieved. The Horror Show for me last night in the stands was the realization that Sanchez put all this supposedly deliberate, time-consuming, painstaking attention to detail into his off-season to get the balance WSW is referring to... the balance between throwing the games away with reckless INTs and Check-Down Choking. He just looked overwhelmed last night. Unsure of himself. Wanting to go through mechanical motions to move the chanis and realizing nothing was working for him. And the methodical thinker that his is, he's telling himself he needs to go back to his little drawing board and figure this all out again from scratch. Well, there's no time for that. He needs to come out of his Methodical Shell and use the last 90 seconds of the game the way Elway or Marino would have used them... move the damned chains and get the team within field goal range one more time. But he's a rookie and he ain't Elway or Marino. It's going to take time with him. Again, expectations have been (and still are) WAY off the charts. Way off. Superbowl my ass. Ryan needs to STFU about that and I guess he will now. Maybe.
Yes, the pass protection was very iffy and Sanchez did a lot of running around in the first half when he dropped back to pass. In the second half he wasn't running, instead he was quickly dropping his sights to the check down option. I like the guy who runs around a lot more than the guy who takes one look down the field and then dumps it off. The Jets are going to have to figure out how to get him in scrambling mode consistently when the pressure is there, and it's going to be there a lot this season with the issues at LG and RT. What they really need to do is get it ingrained in Sanchez head that the minute he's out of the tackle box he can throw it wherever the hell he wants too and there'll be no grounding. That would let him scramble, take a good look downfield and then chuck it out if he has to. Watching him try to be a worse version of Checkdown Chad all season is probably going to kill dozens of fans out there on their couches, literally.
Excellent post. If Ryan keeps talking Super Bowl he's going to split the locker-room, between the defense that thinks it has all the goods and the offense that the defense thinks is holding them back.
Sanchez = SCARED! Inept is the best was to describe the offense I saw last night. What I saw last night is a QB who was clearly intimidated. All he wanted was the ball out of his hands, and as fast as possible. This is QUITE alarming. In his post game interview, he still looked like a deer in headlights.. talking about how he was happy he didn't throw a pick... Really, that's what he takes from this performance? Your happy you didn't throw a pick??? I'm more concerned that he didn't pick up his sack and take control of this offense when it was needed. I am totally disgusted right now. He has not grown from last year except maybe he knows where the check down receivers are supposed to be. Further, the play calling did LITTLE to even give him a chance to get into any rhythm. Move the pocket??? From what I've seen thus far of Sanchez, I know he throws well on the move, how about making his reads easier by moving the pocket, cutting the field in 1/2, and letting him take a chance down the field... get the ball to your playmakers??? I have ZERO confidence in Shotty as an OC... he's way to cute... motion, WR's swapping sides of the field in a 2 minute offense, wasting precious seconds. Rex need to stop being buddy buddy with Shotty and stick his foot up his ass. That Baltimore defense is good, but its BEATABLE. And we never attacked any of their weaknesses... not once And Middle Ground??? How about some sort of a plan... WTF was our offense doing all off-season??? Undisciplined, unorganized, lackadaisical... just plain BAD is what I saw. Our QB is a reflection of our OC... he's trying to be perfect, which makes you play slow, because you think instead of play... Totally frustrated and embarrassed by our offense. That offensive game plan lacked imagination, was poorly executed. If the game-plans are like this for the remainder of the season, this is going to be a long season. They talked shit about about making plays and getting weapons for the offense and failed to use them... Just sickening
I do believe that being conservative and "checkdown happy" is a stage in the QB development process. My concern is that even in crunchtime when we NEEDED plays downfield..he was still looking to dump the ball off 3-4 yards. W/ Balty's depleted secondary...that was unacceptable. W/ that said....as bad as the offensive performance was...we at least have to recognize that at least sanchez didn't throw any interceptions. That's at least SOMETHING to take a positive.
Actually I remember Holmes playing mostly with the 2s in preseason. I don't remember him starting in the Was game.
If the Jets gave Bill Callahan the offense one of two things would happen: either Shonn Greene would go down with an injury under the work overload and the Jets would be in trouble or the Jets would suddenly be able to move the ball again and would likely win more than their share of games. I am so tired of watching Brian Schottenheimer's offense, and I'm tired of watching it for the most important reason: it fails. The only people who got good use out of it were seasoned professional QB's who were half-implementing it and half going with the system they really knew, that being Chad Pennington in 2006 (mediocre but acceptable offensive productivity) and Brett Fave in 2008 (Green Bay's WCO with a few Schotty trimmings). When you've been OC for four years and two of them were offensive wipeouts with different QB's each time and now it looks like the tie-breaking year is going to be a disaster also? Can him before he destroys another season.
This was the most disappointing thing to me. Maybe keeping the game close the whole time without taking too many chance is OK, but when you have no choice but to push down field you can't be checking down still. I understand we need to be patient, but I will have more patience with INT's when trying to do something than with being far too conservative.
Exactly. Thats what is so disappointing. All we have heard is that the Jets are telling him not to lose the game. Well, thats not the qb that we saw in the 3 playoff games. Thats the qb I expected to see this year...NOTHING MORE. I truly am not sure who fault that was. Was it Sanchex being way to literal? Did they give him an extra "don't screw up" speech for this game because it was the Ravens? Not sure...but you are correct. Somebody needs to take the kid into the room and tell him they were just kidding...or something.
Scary thought. Our Qb is a great kid who came out early last year because he would have went in the third rd this year and reality is now going to kick in with our schedule. Woody got his Psl pretty boy now we have to deal with the consequences as fans. I hope im wrong but with the schedule we have we will find out quick. It is a bit disturbing when Ray Lewis says im not worried about your team because your QB can not throw. The shame is they called the game like they were scared to let him throw. I hope they do not think we are going to win games scoring ten points each week. The kid can not read a defense. Not to say that his supporting cast helped him out last night but if they were not going to let him throw them at least keep Faneca to keep the line strong.
What happend to quick slants, down and outs. Sanchez should have been given a path to confidence by the coaches. Instead he checked down before anyone could even think of being open. Pretty sad really, we have all this talent and the coaches, system, and young QB grind it to a halt.
So many good points on this thread. I know Sanchez didn't exactly light it up but before we all hit the panic button, let's keep in mind ... there were at least 3 obvious drops I remember (Cotchery, Greene, Richardson) ... 2 brainfarts (Edwards, Keller) ... and 1 fumble that all took away what should have been EASY first downs. Offense is a rythym thing and those plays destroyed any rythym we might have been able to create. Sanchez was part of the problem, but there was plenty of blame to go around. I think we have good players on this offense, and I don't think that's the standard of play we'll be seeing from them all year. Either you can play or you can't. I beleive the guys on our team (including our QB) can play. And for the record ... I love you Rex, but if you're gonna shoot your mouth off about how tough you are and how you're "putting a target on their chest" you cant turn around on 4th and 1 from the 11 yard line and turn into a pussy. We ended up averaging 5 yards per carry in that game ... WTF are you doing kicking a goddamn FG??? NOBODY helped Sanchez in that game ... including the coaching staff.
Excellent points. Sitting in the stands during the final moments, it was as if the entire offensive game was defined in that last drive. I told my son that 1:37 remaining (or whatever it was... I know it was over a minute left) is plenty of time for us to get within field goal range. That's what good QBs and good offenses do. The last 4 downs mirrored what our offense looked like all night.
This was my main problem with Sanchez last night. I think Sanchez is getting way too much heat for this loss. I would bet that Shotty and probably Rex went into this game with a simple offensive gameplan. Don't turn the ball over, play mistake free football on offense, and win on defense. This was probably drilled into Sanchez's head. Sanchez never struck me as the "Captain Checkdown" type. I'm sure he'd throw down field (probably into double coverage) if the coaching staff would take off the reins or he called his own plays. I can't knock him for the checkdown stuff, because I'd bet that was coached into him for this game. Sanchez himself needs to realize what the game situation is however. I strongly suspect he still fails to process this, which is a major problem with his QB play. Remember the color coded plays last season? It seems like the coaching staff has to tell him when to throw deep and take chances, because he's still dropping things off over the middle with 45 seconds to go and no timeouts. Kids who play Madden know better...throw the ball away, throw it for the sidelines, or throw it down field. Not over the middle.
Sanchex...I like it. I saw several passing plays where receivers were open (or about to be)downfield and Sanchex threw underneath. Dropped passes, fumbles, penalties, time of possession, etc. are not why we lost. The offensive performance last night was easily among the worst (if not the worst) I've ever seen from a Jets team. Simply horrendous. The last drive pretty much summed it up. On 4th down, Keller goes out of bounds short of the marker...and 15 feet away, with a clear view of the marker, there's our head coach clapping his hands to applaud. 20 feet away, there's Ray Lewis with his fist in the air.
He made it to the AFC Championship game and had the whole off season to get it together. Rex called it conservative for a reason. Especially with the Ravens line as good as it is and their secondary now made up of no names there was no excuse not to let him throw. Sanchez is not talented enough to be good and not smart enough to manage a game. Our Running game got us where we were last year and that is screwed because we let Faneca go.
He seems to get happy feet in the pocket sometimes. There were a good chunk of plays where he had decent protection, but then he takes his eyes off down-field and starts jittering around in the pocket looking for the rush when it wasn't even there. I don't know if he's hearing footsteps or if the coaching staff told him to have an incredibly short mental clock, but he did have more time than he thought out there on a few plays. Last year, he was holding onto the ball way too long. Now he's looking to get rid of it too quick. Hopefully he'll find a happy medium as he continues to learn the game.
Good post WSW. At some point Sanchez has to go with instincts, and by making him become a machine takes that part of the game away. It was so obvious what the problem was last night, Stevie Wonder commented on it.
