Links: Defensive Heavy
Posted on May 26th, 2006 by Bassett
- Vinnie Iyer, an editor for the Sporting News addresses the Jets switch to the 3-4 and asks some good questions. It does also bear to state that Iyer thought the Jets and Vikings were going to SuperBowl XL, too…
- Riffing off of Iyer, Bob Bullock over at Jetstream considers the Jets' possible switch to the 3-4 as well.
- Leon Washington talks about his trip to LA with other rookies an NFLPA symposium.
- Quincy Carter has been cut by the Montreal Als, and calls it “a joke.”
- Not sure what this means, but two of the councilman for the new home of the Jets, Florham Park, have resigned within the past month.
- The Jets have invited, at no cost, a Madison New Jersey HS football team to attend Mangini's upcoming camp.
- The Florham Park Paper (most likely a weekly) reported a few days ago on the Jets Fest held on 5/17 in Florham Park.
The Jet defense lost its only two impact players from last year. You simply don't replace Abraham's 10 1/2 and 6 forced fumbles or Ty Law's 10 INT's and the Jets didn't. Vilma is the Jets defensive player but his flaws were exposed last season. With a healthy DeWayne Robertson and a Jason Ferguson having one of his best seasons the 2004 Jets ranked 7th on total defense and 5th vs the run. With Robertson and Ferguson keeping interior offensive linemen off of Vilma he was an impact player voted as defensive rookie of the year.
Last year Robertson had bad knees and was not nearly the player he was in 2004 and Ferguson was replaced by three speed bumps in Lagree, Reed and Pouha. Vilma didn't make a lot of impact plays because of the dismal performance of the interior defensive line. He made a tremendous number of tackles, enough to be called up as a replacement LB'er on the Pro Bowl team…. but he was a stat compiler not an impact player.
Te Jets are a bad team with a worse defense than last season. Don't count on coaching. Donnie Henderson and even the hated Ted Cottrell Vikings had better defenses than the 26th ranked Patriot defense last year.
Bob, I agree with your point that Abraham and Law are not easy to replace. Over the years Abe was one of my favorite players.
What your not factoring in, however, are that Law's and Abraham's gaudy numbers did not translate into wins. Uber-talented players such as these are great chips to have in our hands once we have a playoff caliber team.
We did have a defense that theoretically could have kept us in games by playing average to above average run defense, and inconsistent but decent pass defense.
Unfortunately, we had an offense that continually put our defense in poor position — either forcing them to play with a short field or bringing them out before they could catch their breath and work with the coaches on the sideline to neutralize the opposing offense.
If we can put together a “grinding” offensive line, one that can pick up a few more first downs per game than we did last season, I think our defense can be adequate enough to keep games close. They will not, however, put up the kind of gaudy numbers they did last year in terms of sacks and INT. But in the long run, I'd rather have wins.
I'm still miffed the Jets didn't draft Chris Gocong!
Gocong might struggle in the 4-3 at Philly. So maybe he'll be available in a couple of year's time!
I think we could do with a proven veteran pass rusher and if we don't get once through the June cuts, maybe we'll trade for one.