it's hard to argue with that. I don't know Puck. I understand your metaphor perfectly, I stated that neither of them deserve any kudos, but Hunter's getting beat...a lot. I feel as though Baxter has at least held his own. At least good enough for a dude with basically no NFL experience.
To me when you're on the road in the NFL and you make a negative game changing special teams play and your OL is dominated at the point of attack you're pretty much fucked. That's why Dallas lost to us and why we lost to Oakland.
Their 1st team all-pro center out might have a little to do with that. And the guy who should be replacing him out with the broken leg might have some issue with this, too. They aren't having a good season so far, and I hate to blame injuries, but they are certainly playing a role in all this.
Right, to just sort of add on this. Baxter was, what undrafted (I could be wrong), rookie who's been in our system for 3 weeks and probably never imagined he would have to start. Hunter has been with us for years. When you have 0 expectations for Baxter, kinda shitty is a lot better than pure shit.
i agree ... they won at the POA on both sides of the ball and didnt turn the ball over. hard to overcome that
There were obviously some good plays made by the Jets yesterday. Strickland made a good play subbing for Cro. Burress looked good when he was given a chance to catch the ball, and drew some helpful penalties on his coverage. LT had a good game, for the most part. Revis was typically awesome. Keller had some good plays. But pretty much every one other than Revis, and I guess LT, did not have a good game. That included the CS. And this is a cause for concern. As you point out it has been more typical to be able to hang a loss on a few clear cut reasons. THis kind of more general breakdown is different, and the Ryan we saw in the post game interview seemed to understand that at the same time he was at a loss, apparently, for understanding how it happened. If this is not a trend, and the more typical performance we have gotten used to since Ryan became HC is what we will again see soon, maybe even this coming weekend, we will forget this. But if it continues, it will be a huge problem. The problems with the D are perhaps most hard to get a handle on, but at the same time this is the D that broke down completely in the first half of the Champ game against Pitt. That got no game balls against the Cboys. That sucked something awful yesterday. Maybe other teams have enough film now to figure out how to counter Rex's D. Maybe the LB's all got slower at the same time. Maybe Ellis leaving hurt more than many predicted it would. Whatever the reasons, the combination of reasons, today this seems different than past problems, certainly ones that preceded the loss last year to end the season.
This is why I don't like beating up on Sanchez over games like yesterday. This team is based on defense, great special teams and winning at the point of attack on both sides of the ball. Sanchez was asked to carry a bad team yesterday on the road. Not many NFL QB's can do that.
I agree it was a terrible decision ... it happens. No need to overreact. What I took more from yesterday's game was how much guts this kid has. He threw 2 TD's, ran for another ... and stuck his head in there for a possible 4th TD with the game on the line ... even though he had Raider linemen in his face for 2 quarters and was getting his nose rearranged on the sidelines about 10 minutes earlier. This QB of ours is a winner. Yes, he'll make some bonehead mistakes but I can live with them once in a while. One more foot on that run and we would have been lining up for an onsides kick despite the fact that he was getting his ass kicked for the entire second half. There's no quit in this guy, and for me that counts for more than a few bad passes. And BTW fellas ... we didn't lose to a terrible team. These Raiders can play a little.
I'm not disagreeing with that but that doesn't mean Sanchez doesn't take any blame for his play or decisions either. Cromartie made some monumental mistakes but at the end of the day if Sanchez doesn't take points off the board on two occasions maybe the Cromartie fumble doesn't even happen.
I think Rex said after the game that "Mark saw something he thought was there", so I'm guessing it was just a bad read. But yeah, you'd like to see Sanchez be smarter about the game situation there and not try to force the ball in. As others have mentioned, all of his stats are up this year so far. His completion percentage is up to 63%. QB Rating is up, 7 TDs (1 rush) to 4 ints, etc. On the flip side, he still makes bad throws, the occasional bad read, and he doesn't properly consider risk vs reward when it comes to the game situation. It seems like he's getting better, but your point is valid and even he mentioned it after the game...he has to be more careful with the ball there and just throw it away. [YOUTUBE]0emD0-jCOkY[/YOUTUBE]
I'm not calling you out, but I feel like people on this board either don't like looking at stats or have a warped sense of what Sanchez did in year 1 and 2 in the regular season (not very pretty numbers). QB Rating (yr 1, 2, and the 3 games of yr 3): 63, 75, 91 (upper half of the league, compared to the bottom 5, yrs 1 and 2) Comp % (same categories) 54, 55, 63 Yds/comp 6.71, 6.49, 7.98 TD 12, 17, 6* (on pace for 30 TD...will he get that? Most likely no) The interceptions are his biggest blemish, no doubt about it, but I see improvement thus far, despite an offensive line and running game, that are FAR inferior to anything we've had here in yr 1 and 2. He's still making bone headed throws, but I think he's limited them compared to last year. It's too small of a sample size to see how much progression he can/will have, but its definitely there so far.
Comparing year long stats to stats for three games creates some anomalies. For example in year two Sanchez went five games without a single INT. He's thrown four in his first three games this year. Sanchez also benefitted yesterday from tremendous YAC numbers from LT in particular. Even LT's TD was a dump off pass that went for 18. The YPC numbers you qoute are from too small a sample, compared to the year long totals from year's one and two. I don't mean to suggest that INT's is the only stat that really matters, either. If you focused on what I actually said, the concern was with avoiding stupid mistakes, the avoidance of which is a big part of having consistency. Yesterday's game was a textbook example of how and why that is the case. The Jets were rolling, and did go on to make more good plays after the INT, but it very much was a turning point in the game - momentum, confidence, the opponent's confidence, all were changed. I also don't mean to suggest that the marginal increase in completion percentage is a bad thing. Of course it is good. But what about the overall numbers of team points scored? In those three games, the Jets are not playing lights out. It's not apparent to me how the Qb play so far this year is better than last year's.
I dont know if this has been said ...but what worries me is we do not have any options behind Sanchez. He is a few more hits away from being possibly knocked out of a game. Brunell will not succeed and either and i forget who we brought in to replace McElroy. (Oconnell??) ... That said the kid has to make smart decisions and stop trying to be the hero on every play! Throw the ball away play another down. Don't force shit that's not there, get the ball to the playmakers. Let's see how he adjusts next week with a tough BALT D
I guess its just a matter of perception then. I agree (and stated in my post) that 3 games is not a good sample size, however, if he continues on the pace he is right now, his stats will be vastly up across the board compared to yrs 1 and 2, the definition of improvement. I agree on the yds/pass, no argument there. Just wanted to throw that in there to show that he's passing more, but passing for more yards, not less. I disagree on the avoidance of mistakes. He's passing the ball more this year and committing less mistakes (not missing as many open receivers, hence the significant increase in comp %) while having no o-line and run game to work with. This can't be overlooked. You can make the case he, by himself, is carrying this offense. You admit his comp % is up, but won't agree that he's shown marked improvement (in any area), which doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And I fail to see how 9% is marginal, but again its just a 3 game sample. They are currently 10th in the NFL in pts/game averaging 28 pts. Up 5 pts from last year. Again, a big improvement from last year. I agree about the sample sizes being way too small, but thats all we have to work with right now. And as of now they're trending upward compared to last year.
Sure, but we don't have anything else to compare to at this point. We've got Sanchez over 300 yards passing in two games (which he did in non of his games without an int) and with a completion percentage over 60%. This is what a lot of us wanted to see from him in the preseason. Yards per catch are up. Yes that is skewed upward by dumping the ball off to LDT, but it's not like every QB in the league doesn't get the same benefit. In fact, the idea that dumping the ball to Greene/LDT might be the best risk/reward play is something important for Sanchez to get. Not throwing an int doesn't mean he's playing well either, that first game last year in Baltimore was pretty crappy even if he got out int free.
He's got a rushing TD too. If Sanchez follows the Flacco/Ryan model of improvement, he should end up with around 25-30 TDs and 10-15 ints. If you look at Sanchez's year 2 numbers they compare pretty favorably with Flacco and Ryan...
Second this all. I am not sure what Jet fans expect of Sanchez. Do you want Chad Pennington accuracy? Because it's not going to happen. But what also is not going to happen is having NO chance to comeback when they get down by 10 points. The kid is a streak quarterback. He has a 6-6 drive, then will miss his next 5. He can be very good and very bad all in the same game. All he has to do, and he has to a certain extent, is limit the amount of very bad in the game. He doesn't have to be Tom Brady, and unlike Tony Romo, who I think he is most like, he actually does BETTER in pressure situations and coming from behind. Let's see how the season pans out. He is a winner, and to me, has shown enough for me to think the Jets can win a Super Bowl with him at quarterback. Now they just need to fix the defense, and fire Schottenheimer, because, he blows.
