You are second one to raise this issue after Sundayjack - so I have a question for you. What do you think the defense should have done differently? (I want you to know that I am asking this purely out of curiosity, nothing else.)
While "catastrophe" seems way over the top considering the Jets have the playoffs in their own hands with two games to play... You have to blame the GM and Coaching staff for miscalculating their OL and DL talent and depth. Both of which have come up very small for this team. You can have the best skill players in the league on both sides of the ball (QB, RB, WR, TE, CB, LB), but if the OL can't protect or run block and the DL can't slow down the run or pressure the QB the skill players can't do their thing...
Blitz? I don't know about you, but I have had enough of this read and react horseshit. This is not what I signed up for when Rex came to town.
Blame for last weekends debacle falls right on Rex. His team is totally undisciplined and lacks concentration on any level. This is what you get with this type of coach. I love the guy, but his window is closing quickly thanks to the total lack of any type of discipline whatsoever.
Ouch. But... have to concede, this might well be a very fair point. Let's put it this way - Ryan should be concerned about this. It is beyond question that this team makes too many mistakes, and not confined to a few players, either. Ftr I would not say they lack any discipline, but they sure are lacking in discipline. No question about it.
Ftr I was actually more concerned about DL going into the season than has proven warranted. But I attribute most of that to two things, the first being that Pouha has had a great year, the second that Wilkerson has shown himself to be, while not great, no rookie of the year candidate, at least acceptable as a first year starter. Dixon has also played well at times. DeVito has had trouble staying on the field, though.
You see... that's the problem. You can give Rex all the credit in the world, but there is one area where you can't praise him - and that's building a solid front 7. Jets under Ryan's guidance never had the fearsome presence up front - always having to disguise their blitz scheme, and most of them were overload blitz from the secondary. One of the reasons with the weak pressure from front 7 is, (at least the way I see is) the lack of physical domination up front - Jets front seven never had this ever since Kris Jenkins went down. On top of that, Jets LB corp is generally slow, so if you add weak front 3 with slow LB corps in a blitz situation, you get what I call a gigantic clusterfuck. (Recall how Manning had all the time in the world during AFCGG in the 2nd half.) If you are saying that huge clusterfuck could have worked against Vick, of all QBs, I would have tell you I have no illusions about that.
Mix up coverages a little more, Move Revis around the field. Also, The fact that we telegraph our blitzes is ridiculous at times. We are more effective (like in NE) when we show several blitzes before the snap. Also, the fact that we have backup safeties 1 on 1 on Celek was a joke. Is it so hard to get a nickle back or a guy like Strikland on pass catching TE's? Also, no larger 4 man fronts? We are constantly giving up the edge if your going to have Mabin running himself out of the play just trying to get a coverage sack. Add an extra DT/DE on a few plays. We've done that in the past but I didn't notice it last week.
You asked me the same question and I never got back to you. Sorry. The real answer is: I don't know. Nor would anyone else using the limited field of vision of a television screen. You can look at clips of plays all you want, but if you can't see what the players off-screen are doing, you're only getting half the picture. I have a fan's view, of course. Clearly there were two threats in the passing game - receivers downfield and Michael Vick scrambling for 30 yards if everyone is blanketed and he sees an open lane to run out of the pocket. I watched the play again where Celek had a catch and run for 70 or so yards. I see two problems happening. First, it looks like David Harris was staying in and spying Vick, but it also looks like he was supposed to hit and reroute Celek in the 5-yard safe zone, OR, he had coverage underneath and was passing him off beyond that, and his true focus was solely Michael Vick. The next thing you see is Eric Smith chasing Celek from three yards back and absolutely no one in the middle of the field to make a tackle. Whether it was a lousy defensive call, lousy talent/skills or lousy execution - I just couldn't tell you. Hitting Celek and taking him three steps out of his route would be critical if you're going to have Eric Smith covering the guy. But that would seem to be a pretty effective thing to do against a guy like Brent Celek in ANY event. The point of it all using that one play to illustrate, outside of what I would do differently, is that there seem to be three possible explanations for failure on that play. We'll never make Eric Smith faster, but through either breakdown in execution or play call, we put him in a position where 9 times out of 10 he'll fail. Saying "Eric Smith sucks" and calling it a talent problem doesn't work for me. It certainly IS a talent problem, but there's more to it than that.
Basically on the defensive side smoke and mirrors never withstands intense scrutiny for long. The Jets need better players on that side of the field if they want to be a topflight defense. Given where the Jets are now it might be in their best interests to revive the original smoke and mirrors that Rex brought in with him in 2009. They certainly couldn't do consistently worse than they are right now if they were blitzing every other down and trying to make the QB throw under heavy pressure. Eli Manning is the kind of QB that really likes to take a 5 step drop and let it fly. The Jets should probably have a defensive back joining him in the backfield as often as possible as he does that.
The fact that we haven't seen nearly as much of the heavy blitz packages this year really makes me wonder if Rex isn't holding something for the playoffs. Remember last year he continued to show the heavy blitz package throughout the regular season even though teams started to pick it up very well. We got burned on it a few times during the regular season but we had enough wins to get into the postseason. When we did play in the postseason Ryan threw Brady and Manning a curve ball by completely switching up the defense to be coverage heavy rather than blitz heavy. It seems extremely risky considering our current scenario, but Rex is an all-in guy. He doesn't really give a shit about just making the playoffs, he wants a ring. I wouldn't be shocked at all to see him not only come out blitz heavy in the playoffs but to show a bunch of blitz schemes he's never showed before but that they've been practicing all season. Throw in the fact that we could potentially face the TJ Yates lead Texans in the first round, and he could potentially hold those cards for another week and I like our chances if we do get in. There will be no teams with speed like the Raiders and Eagles have in the AFC side of the bracket. Or maybe I should just have another cup of kool-aid flavored egg nog.
If what I picked up from your post is correct, then the loss of fundamental football on the defensive side is astounding - and that's an understatement. And I believe such view has its merit indeed; I would contend that, for instance, Revis is at his very best when he is manned up squarely face-to-face, instead of 5 yards off - and current Jets defense frequently line Revis good 5 to 10 yards off the LoS on any given play. I have to wonder if that is the very best use of his talent. Another thing that I also notice (that indicates the loss of fundamentals) is that Jets rarely chip or bump the receivers at LoS - they never did that during either of the two games against Pats this season. It does not bode too well - at least not with me. So... it all goes back to... getting back to the fundamentals, I guess? Maybe that's not the end-all, be-all solution but that should be the starting point at least.
