Cmon now according to most on this board he is the brainest LBer in the NFL. Makes you wonder just how smart he is when he cannot pickup our D scheme. Did it ever occur to you that JV just does not have the necessary ability to be successful in EMs D & nothing to do with schemes?
Wow you sounded just like me this & the previous off season. I wonder why you are not attacked like I was when I said exactly the same thing especially from GM & KSjet
I love Mangini but the one dumb move he made was turning us into a 3-4 team when our best playes were suited for the 4-3.
You know, I cannot agree more. Their personnel is all better at 4-3, than 3-4. In the playoffs against the Pats last year, the Pats sucessfully RAN for a crucial first down against the jets on a 3rd and 8 in the second half. They are going to run all over the jets in the opener. Robertson is NOT a 3-4 nose tackle.
You know I think you add something to the conversation. You represent the really frustrated older fan who has not seen a championship in 36 years and is mad as hell and not going to take it any more. That said, the reason you draw attacks is that you never post anything positive. People see your tag and they know what the tenor of your post is going to be even if they don't know what the specific issue is. Switching topics, I really think the Jet's defense would have been better going into this season if they had gone 5-11 last year. I think the 10-6 playoffs thing masked the fact that it was the offense, not the defense, that really played decently last season. We got to play some sadsack teams in the second half with very weak rushing attacks and everybody (including the Jets) concluded that the 3-4 was gelling with experience. It wasn't. That was a mirage. So instead of facing up to the task of rebuilding the defense from the ground up this past offseason the Jets instead cherry-picked a couple of players to slot in and turn what they think is a fair defense into a good one. The only problem is they did not have a fair defense last year, they had a mediocre one. And we'll likely have the same this year. Next year will be the ground up rebuild on that side of the ball.
Where is all this great 4/3 talent? Hobson and Thomas turned their professional career's around last year playing in the 3/4. Ellis is taylor made for the 3/4 as is Harris and Barton. There are 2 players on our d that benifit from a 4/3 that's Vilma and D'Rob but we didn't have a tackle last year to put next to D'Rob that would have demanded enough attention to make either one of them better. The only time either one of them played at a significantly better level was when Ferguson was in the middle of the line. We need a big time nose tackle or a big time tackle to make either the 4/3 or the 3/4 work. We haven't stopped the run since 04 when we had Ferguson and D'Rob in the middle.
I disagree. He has a scheme he wants to implement - what's the point in teaching everyone one scheme, then changing it a year later? Better to go with what he wants to use, and see who can and who can't play in it. It's not like we used 3-4 on 90% of the defensive snaps anyway - someone will have the stats, no doubt.
You must think Mangini is an idiot? Do you really believe he watches hour after hour of game footage and thinks "well, that wasn't very good, but we were 10-6, so it'll do"? He and his team spend hours analysing and grading every individual player, they know who can do what. What Mangini says to the media can largely be ignored, IMO. He has to sound positive. I don't think he's the kind of coach to ignore problems because of the record, I just can't buy that.
I don't think Mangini is an idiot by any means. Just as I would never have called Bill Belichik an idiot in Cleveland. And I don't mean to suggest that that is where we are headed, however I see a huge talent problem on the defensive side of the ball right now and the 3-4 is magnifying the problem not reducing it. Similarly, we've got real issues on the offensive side of the ball also. I do think that the 10-6 last year seriously clouded the Jets judgement going into the draft this year. What they needed to have was as much talented depth as they could manage given the overall talent issues on the team. What they did instead was to gamble heavily on a few players early on in the hopes of making the defense very strong. They did not achieve that end and were extremely unlikely to at the time they made the tradeups. The thing that's getting to me right now is that I see a team that once again is capped out at 9 or 10 wins, as the Jets have been for a decade now and yet could lose 10 or 11 with a little bad luck. I thought we were past that with the new administration.
Pretty much NT, ILB, and maybe some depth at DE are holding us back right now. Hobson, and Thomas were solid last year despite piss poor play from the d-line and they will only get better, whoever in this thread is relegating them to backup needs to open their eyes. The fact that Ellis is getting his 3-4 skill back is good, hopefully Coleman can play decent on the other side. Harris is a key draft choice, and I'd bet any money if we got a true NT via FA or draft next year and the LBs were Hobson, Harris, Barton, Thomas we'd turn some heads. Vilma and D-Rob just aren't getting it done. BTW, I've said it before and I'll say it again, Hobson would make a damn good ILB in the 3-4, and the fact that he played well last year at OLB shows how versatile he is in our system. He is very underrated. Hobson and Harris at ILB would be nice to see.
Although I really dig players like Vilma and Robertson, our defense wasn't really lighting the world on fire under Herm's mishmosh 4-3. I would be an angry man if we had a D like the Ravens and Mangini tried to change the configuration like the Ravens did, but this isn't the same thing. The Jets' defense lacked an identity for five freaking years, constantly switching from this to that to the other thing. Mangini's 3-4 will not only possess an identity, is will also have something resembling the consistent philosophy that it lacked. Our defense was far from an effective 4-3 and although there have been a number of expected bumps in the road during the conversion, I welcome what I know is coming.
putting on pounds has nothing to do with being a better player to fit a 3-4 defense. if anything, it hampers a players ability to be at his best. it's the players body frame that dictates optimum playing weight. vilma's best attributes are speed and instinct. he's a 4-3 linebacker, plain and simple!!!!
as much as i may hate to agree with a patsie, i have to say i do right now. you are making huge assumptions a certain player is going to be great(he's proven nothing) and there is no such thing as a shut down corner.. closest to it is champ bailey, and revis can not be compared with a guy with that kind of talent, seriously!!!!
The point is he never should have changed to begin w/. We had a D full of 4-3 players, a D that was top 5 when healthy just a year before Mangini got here. it's obvious this 3-4 thing isn't working out so far. We had a top 5 D in 2004, a D that alsmot sigle handedly beat Pitt at Pitt in the playoffs.
Losing Jason Ferguson hurt badly. He solidified the middle and let D-Rob freelance and slash away on the angles. That's not saying that we should have signed Ferguson to a big contract but arguing that the Jets D in 2006 had a chance to be as good as 2004 is misleading because the glue in the middle was gone.
I see your argument clearly junc...Here is the thing... Vilma, Robertson, and Ellis probably, are very good, Vilma extremely good, in a 4-3 defense...But Thomas, Hobson, and Coleman seem to be well-suited for the 3-4, without a doubt. Thomas was a BUST until he stood up as a linebacker in the 3-4, and Hobson was marginal at best in the 4-3, he isn't great in the 3-4, but it also suits him better... The only players who can actually play both defenses well are Ellis and Barton...Still too many holes.