Comments on: Areas for Improvement: Jets 20, Dolphins 14

By: The Big Hits 9.09.08 « the east coast bias

The Big Hits 9.09.08 « the east coast bias — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 16:32:16 +0000

[...] a furious comeback by deposed former Jet Quarterback Chad Pennington, and Favremania. Lots of room for improvement on this squad, though. Some guy named Will Leitch comments that the conservative Mangenious style [...]

By: Johnny Styne

Johnny Styne — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:38:25 +0000

SackDance99 — “How do you think a West Coast team would fare going into steamy South Florida for a 1 pm?” — Raiders 35 Dolphins 17 — Sept. 30th, 2007, 1pm –

SackDance99 — “if Chad is healthy for all 16 games” — ahahahahahahahahaha –

By: CaneJet

CaneJet — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:12:12 +0000

Main necessary improvement? A healthy kicker.

Re point 2: I think Cotch may qualify as a “big play weapon.”

Re point 3: Chad is already one of the “better quarterbacks” in the league. You always want to make each opportunity for a sack pay off, but I think the defense can pat itself on the back for holding him off in the final seconds.

By: Jose the Jet

Jose the Jet — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 00:34:17 +0000

Im sitting here watching the Minnesota Green Bay game and thnking. How can you defend something you cannot do? If you cant pass how do you defend the pass? Minnesota cant do it or defend it. Maybe that is why they wanted Brett?

Now that we have Brett we can practice on how to defend it. We can now prepare for the better QBs of the NFL by practicing with Brett Favre!!!

By: pat d

pat d — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:19:38 +0000

The biggest concern by far –

Is Nugent still on this team?

if yes

Then the question must be why?

By: SackDance99

SackDance99 — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:11:31 +0000

Brad, given how the Seahawks played, do you think Miami would’ve stolen a win if they played the Seahawks instead of the Jets? How do you think a West Coast team would fare going into steamy South Florida for a 1 pm game? Bottom line, when you’re on the road and hold the home team to 14 points, you’ll win most games. This isn’t college football where you roll up points to improve your ranking. Let’s see what shakes out after the Bills face a Jacksonville team on the road that is smarting from a tough opening divisional loss and after the Jets face the Pats.

By: Brad

Brad — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 18:00:41 +0000

If u look at the new prediction for our AFC East now that it seems the Patriots will be without Brady, the Bills are predicted to be the winners! You know why, because they blew out a good team in Seatle. Never letting up and playing hard all game. The Jets on the other hand played well and hard for the first 3 quarters but then played safe and conservative which resulted in a nail biter for us and did not show the league that we are a dominant team! The conservative play calling has to go!

I said in previous post before yesterdays game after observing the preseason that our weakest spots are Free Safety with Smith/ Elam and Kicking- Mike Nugent and this really showed yesterday!

Lowery looks like another stud, unfortunately the TE got great position on him and CP threw a perfect throw.

Run defense did its job, and run offense looked pretty good too. The phins O-line and D-line were the areas they improved the most on this offseason and we seemed to still dominate both!

Was not too impressed with Barton or Harris yesterday! Couldn’t believe Harris let that guy get around him and out of bounds in that last drive. Another time in an under throw by CP the WR jumped in the air and Barton was off him by a few yards and just waited for this guy to land and waited for this WR to make a move to get the Firstdown rather than attacking/closing when he was in the air to prevent the first down!

By: SackDance99

SackDance99 — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:57:20 +0000

Seriously, how can anyone fault the Jets for running the ball with a little over 2 minutes left? Gregg Easterbrook, of ESPN.com’s TMQ, always makes the point that by merely running the ball and keeping the clock running, 9 out of ten times the winning team can just run out the clock, or leave the opposing team with too little time to score (btw, Easterbrook also hates blitzing because of the potential for a big play…scoring TDs is hard, most drives fail, so why help the offense in any way?). With Miami only having 1 TO, running the ball was the proper strategy. On 3rd and 7, if Favre has an incompletion, which would have stopped the clock, or, even worse, a sack, fumble or INT, the Jets would’ve placed Miami in a much better situation. Chad did a great job getting the Fins down the field to stress us all out, but I find it really hard to fault the coaching staff at the end. They went by the book, and the book worked.

Also, for the folks who are dissing the Fins, this is a Bill Parcells team. As we know when the Jets went from 1-15 to 9-7 under Parcells, Miami will come to play and try to execute a winning game plan. The only time a Parcells team in his first year didn’t win one of its first 2 games was when he first coached the Pats, and that team won its last 4 games to go 5-11. He’s good at what he does.

Since I’ve been on this blog, I’ve said over and over that Chad needs TEs and Harm gave him stone hands Becht for almost his whole Jets career. Look what he did with Fasano and Martin. With Ricky or Brown out of the backfield and the TEs, Chad has the guys to work the middle of the field, something he never had under Harm or Mangini. To me, that’s just a small indication of how Parcells is maximizing the talent of his players. Right now, I’m glad that Week 17 game is at home and should be in the cold because if Chad is healthy for all 16 games, there’s nothing he’d like more than knocking the Jets out of the playoff hunt and I expect the Fins to much better by week 17…Merling and Langford look like studs, Ferguson looks rejuvenated. I’m not discounting this win.

By: AABrooklyn

AABrooklyn — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:30:06 +0000

I forgot to address #4:
Yeah they were a bit too conservative but I think the coaches (rightfully so) were confident with the Jets D vs. the Miami O, running the clock down and leaving them with no timeouts. Sure the Dolphins got way too close but how many times have we seen Pennington do the same in green & white? In retrospect on 3rd & 7 you probably should go for a pass to get the first down and seal the game but I have no problem with putting the emphasis on the Jets Defense, they just have to be more aggressive and blitz a little, Pennington had too much time to pick out a nice underneath route and chew up chunks of yardage. If they pressure him on the last drive more they either get a turnover quickly or the Dolphins probably stall on downs. No reason to be worried about a long strike and even if there was some kind of miracle long play where they score a touchdown we all know Brett Favre is proficient at leading a 2 minute drill. Perhaps Mangini and Schottenheimer forgot #10 was playing for the other team and they could actually mount a late game comeback drive if needed.

By: AABrooklyn

AABrooklyn — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:17:33 +0000

#1 – Yes there were too many penalties and you don’t want that to become a trend but this is week #1 and there are many new starters and they won the game so I am not going to get worried about this yet.

#2 – Yes Leon did not have a great game but that is partly due to the Dolphins commitment to not letting him beat them as well as play calling. He got one pass in the flat where he shook off the Dolphins DB which is what Leon does best but there not any other plays where he had an opportunity to create. As the #2 RB on a day when #1 RB was running well you can’t always have everything. Another factor is Favre learning to use Leon which may take some time

#3 – For the most part I think the Jets D did a good job of not letting Pennington get away. Sure he was able to get off some passes when they were pressuring him but that is what happens in the NFL, you don’t sack the QB every time you pressure him. I think they did do well in sacking him 4 times, if anything they should have been able to strip the ball especially on one of the Bryan Thomas sacks where he basically tossed Pennington to the ground.

#5 – As I said in a previous post and I agree – Eric Smith can not cover. A free safety is supposed to be much better at picking up receivers and tight ends and Smith continues to show a lack of ability to do so. Elam or another DB should get a shot as Smith is the weakest link on the D right now.

#6 – Yeah this is not a good trend with TEs especially with Ben Watson and Antonio Gates coming up. I don’t know if it is the scheme or personnel issues (aside from the obvious struggles of Eric Smith in pass coverage) but they need to figure this out quick because if not other teams will not exploit the hell out of it, especially in the red zone. As nice as it was to see Pace apply some pressure and Bryan Thomas appear to return to form I wonder if these 2 can play pass coverage adequately, Gholston is clearly not ready to do so. You could have Rhodes lock in on the #1 TE but that takes his blitzes away and limits the defense and leaves the aforementioned crappy Free Safety out there. I hope Mangini & co. can figure it out.