Im not one of those guys calling for Schottenheimer based on this year alone. I get that as a rookie the guy might just not have it. But I dont get how someone can look at Chad and Favre by any statistical measure and say this is a great offense. It clearly is not. I know Favre was hurt at the end, but he was not good before that. Passable? Sure. Good, absolutely not. The guy was a runner up for MVP in 2007 and going to be the runner up in 2009. Chad was runner up in 2008. Under Schottenheimer they threw a ton of interceptions. I hate the idea of having a young QB, who is going to be inaccurate just because he is a rookie, be made to look 100 tines worse by playing in an offense that for whatever reason sees all their QBs throw a tremendously high amount of interceptions. The pressure that is being put on Sanchez now because of the poor play is huge. If they ran a dumbed down offense that didnt allow him to have those 5 pick games this discussion would not be happening. To me the blame for that falls on the shoulders of the coach and the offensive coordinator.

F@ck’n a right Brendan

seanmac-

You make some great points. Im going to have to agree to disagree with you on some of them.

Im just frustrated that after 2 quality QBs the offense continually seems to go thru periods when they just “stall out” completely.

I dont see Schotty protecting Sanchez the way Flacco and Ryan were last season. Sanchez has already thrown just about as much as those two did last season.

As for right now, we are just going to have to see if Schotty makes some changes now that Rex is more involved or the results continue to stay the same. That will be the true test to see where it will lead the Jets off season plans.

Personally, I have had just about enough of Schotty, but he has 6 games left to prove me wrong…only time will tell

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said. I love the Colts as a team, and agree that because they know they’ll be ahead in most games, their defense has been geared to stop the pass.

As for the Jets, their strength is running the ball. They have the receivers to have a more explosive style offense, but because the guy running the show is a neophyte, they needed to insulate him from pressure situations. My biggest issue with Schott, if I had to narrow it down, is that he should be running on 2nd and 8 to get Sanchez to a 3rd and 5 or better. Granted, it’s not guaranteed that they will get those 3 or so yards, but by at least trying you’re more likely to keep Sanchez in more manageable 3rd downs.

In regards to the defense, I agree this is a system that is supposed to generate turnovers, and they’ve gotten better at it the past few weeks, but I’m willing to chalk the lack of turnovers in the first 1/2 to inexperience (and some bad luck). I guess I just wanted to see the gameplan every week to be run the ball, get Sanchez some easy routes and completions (let his receivers do the work for him) and then as the game goes on, the defense wears down, open up the playbook a little bit. Instead, Schotty is just throwing Sanchez to the wolves and letting him throw the full array of pass plays, when he should be letting Sanchez command the passing game piece by piece, instead of trying to become good at it all at once.

But that misses the point. A team needs to have a cohesive scheme so that all the pieces work together. The Colts are a perfect example–they know that their offense can control the game and put up points, and so they built a defense that is designed to stop the pass while not being vulnerable to big plays. The Colts know that most offenses can’t go toe-to-toe with Peyton Manning and out-execute him, and they know that their defense will spend the second half playing with a lead and will thus have to face a lot of pass attempts. That scheme has allowed the Colts to focus their draft strategy on providing the key pieces (WR, pass rushing DEs), and it makes sure that they have a team building philosophy that is coherent and cost effective.

If you are going to have an offense that runs the ball on 6 out of every 10 plays, you are voluntarily putting a ceiling on how much you can score. (In reality, it’s a suicidal approach to take over the long haul, but an understandable one when looking at a single season with a rookie quarterback.) In that situation, your offense simply isn’t going to generate many points, and they certainly aren’t going to put long scoring drives together. So for the team to score enough points to consistently win, they need to generate points from other areas, a.k.a. defense and special teams, and they need those two units to create short fields that will allow the offense to get more scoring chances. The Jets defense has been terrific at denying yards and points to opposing offenses, but that’s not enough for the kind of scheme you’re talking about–they also need to create short fields and/or to score themselves. They haven’t done so, and that’s despite their being a high-pressure defense that is supposed to generate turnovers.

This is a defense that didn’t give up a TD for something like 10 quarters to open the season. Rex came in talking about his plan, and we haven’t seen it from the offense. Rex is taking charge of that now, but he shouldn’t have had to do that if Schotty kept it simple, pounding the rock and let Sanchez gain confidence off of screens, slants and play action.