Monthly Archives: March 2009
Let’s see how this plays out. I imagine that, yes, the Jets will be interested. I don’t know that this is the right move for the organization, but 26 year old QBs with proven ability like this don’t come along all that often. You can’t think that the Jets won’t at least make inquiries. What it comes down to is the price … can the Jets get Cutler for a reasonable value with the team and pieces they already have?
Thanks to the many of you who sent this on …
Just like another administration’s first 100 days, so too TJB will be keeping watch over the Rex Ryan administration for the first 100 days … playing it by the numbers if you will. Each day, we’ll try to keep the associated day number in play.
Day Sixty Six
Class of ’66 – Emerson Boozer,
1966 – The Jets were 6-6-2 under Weeb and Namath threw 19 TDs and 27 INTs.
As Worn By – Randy Rasmussen, Dave Cadigan, Pete Kendall
Kendall’s Kontract — The Jets screwed the pooch with the whole handling of the former Guard’s contract. Kendall wanted just $1 million more on his contract after claiming promises to re-work his deal were made. Kendall never got his money, and he was out of town before camp finished. It took exactly one game for Chad Pennington to get injured due to poor line play, and basically the rest of the 2007 season was an excercise of pride. Thanks again Tannenbaum.
Day Sixty Seven
The Ghost of Kimo – Signed to help implement the 3-4, it was hard to imagine that Dewayne Robertson and KVO manning 2/3s of the line in 2006 … shocking.
Class of ’67 – Randy Rasmussen
1967 – The team’s first over .500 season. Weeb and Namath led the team to an 8-5-1 record.
As Worn By – Dave Herman, Darrell White, Dwayne White, Kareem McKenzie
Add your sixty fives and sixes in the comments …
This is NFL Charities Week and the league is giving out $1 million in grants to 89 player-related charities.
Tony Richardson’s foundation “Rich in Spirit” will receive a grant of $25,000 from the NFL.
Here’s some other foundations receiving grants that are Jets related:
Bruce Harper (Heroes and Cool Kids)
JoJo Townsell (MEFIYI Foundation)
Marty Lyons (Marty Lyons Foundation)
Jane McManus (who is having runaway success with her Rangers blog) has some great audio clips from the team’s three QBs from the media day last week.
One of the most interesting things? According to Erik Ainge, Brett Favre actually reads his playbook!!
KC Joyner provided another scientific analysis on the NY Times, this time of the Jets’ big man in the middle. He studied Kris Jenkins’ efficiency throughout the season, and if his injury impacted his play down the stretch. Make sure to check out the link, too. Joyner follows up on his offensive line article from Friday.
Jenkins was quite deservedly named to the Pro Bowl last year and was a dominant run stuffer for most of the season, but his play did fall off because of a herniated disk in his back.
His metrics offer an interesting view of how the injury affected the Jets’ run D. From Weeks 1-12 (i.e. through the big win at Tennessee), Jenkins faced 62 POA runs in 11 games. He gave up just 153 yards on those plays (2.5 YPA) and won 25.8% of his POA blocks. Those are all tremendous totals for a nose tackle.
Now look at his metrics from Weeks 13-17. Jenkins faced 53 POA run attempts, gave up 189 yards (3.6 YPA) and won 17.0% of those blocks. The YPA and POA success rate aren’t as good as before but they are still solid, so that isn’t the news here.
The notable item is that opposing teams were a lot more willing to try running at Jenkins. He faced an average of 5.6 POA runs in the Jets’ first 11 games and then saw over 10 POA runs per game down the stretch. That wasn’t an anomaly of a couple of games throwing off the total, either, as the minimum number of POA runs he faced in a single game in Weeks 13-17 was nine.
What this says is that the Jenkins injury didn’t hurt the Jets because his play fell off, as his metrics show that he was still a solid NT. The impact it did have was that teams were now willing to run inside much more often. That meant the Jet defense could no longer overplay the edges of the running game, and that limited the unit’s overall effectiveness.
With the draft rapidly approaching, David Syvertsen of our good friends at New Era Scouting took time to answer some questions for us about the 2009 Draft Class and how it applies to the Jets needs. Big thanks to David for helping out!
TheJetsBlog.com: The Jets have a lot of needs at a lot of positions … is there one position that is projecting deeper in this draft than the average?
David Syvertsen, New Era Scouting: This year’s running back class is one of, if not the best I’ve seen since I started the scouting process. Names like Knowshon Moreno, Chris Wells, Donald Brown, and LeSean McCoy are likely to be selected in the top 40 picks but there are plenty of backs behind them that will compete for majority carries early on in their careers.
Shonn Greene (Iowa), Rashad Jennings (Liberty), and Glenn Coffee (Alabama) run with the pop and physicality that is NFL ready. Remember back to the 2005 class where Marion Barber III and Brandon Jacobs were both dropped to 4th round grades because of their lack of top end speed and agility. Their effectiveness in short yardage situations got them on the field and they both soared from there. Greene, Jennings, and Coffee are those thick based backs that can make the immediate difference and eventually evolve into every down backs like the guys at the top of the class.
Beyond the running backs, positions like offensive tackle, tight end, and cornerback are all spots that the Jets could use picks on towards the middle and end of their draft to bring in players for immediate depth and long term evolvement.
TJB: Following that up, who’s a quality second round running back the Jets might get who can replace Thomas Jones?
The connection isn’t exactly clear, but it seems that former Jet Jonathan Vilma’s vacant home in Woodbury has become part of a tangled pair of drug related murders in New York City.
“Jonathan has no knowledge of this. He hasn’t lived there since Nov. 2007,” Frankel said – a fact neighbors confirmed.
The 2004 NFL Rookie of the Year is trying to sell the two-story townhouse and spoke to his Realtor last week, Frankel added.
“To his knowledge, nobody is living there,” the agent said. “He is clearly shocked to find out about this.”
The Daily News uses an unnamed law enforcement source that indicates that it was one of Vilma’s relatives or friends that was using the condo, and that friend or relative it is presumed is connected to the case. There’s no reason to believe that Vilma was involved, at least not at this time.
Jenny Vrenthas reports that Thomas Jones is absent again this week from the team’s offseason conditioning.
Vrenthas notes that the Jets might not see Jones til June, but it was my understanding that the team had a mandatory meeting right before the draft … we’ll check it out …
ESPN puts the Jets on the clock at 17 and talk about all the offseason changes.
Newsday’s Erik Boland wrote that the Jets players seem genuinely enthused about their new head coach, Rex Ryan.
“I think the right guy got the job,” safety Kerry Rhodes said. “He set the tone for us early, letting us know that we’re going to be a confident group, that we’re going to go out and attack, which is something that we want to do and is something we think we should do.”
Leon Washington joins the gang at Wheelhouse via phone and gives his pick on who he thinks will be leading the team come this fall.
As a note, it’s shocking to hear a player on the team predict (even with strong couching language, like Leon did) who they think it will be behind center. I just can’t imagine anyone doing that under Mangini.
NFL teams are announcing their Preseason schedules
Although I don’t have dates for all the contests, here’s who the Jets will be playing in their four exhibition games:
Week 1: Home against St Louis Rams (8/13-15) WCBS
Week 2: Away against Baltomore Ravens (8/24) ESPN
Week 3: Away against New York Giants (8/29-30) TBA
Week 4: Home against Philadelphia Eagles (9/3) WCBS
