Category Archives: Opinion
Going into this game, the Patriots have to be wondering .. are the Jets still doing their ‘little tricks’?
Do the Patriots still consider the Divisional game last postseason a ‘little trick’? It’s hard to say, but I get the feeling they do. Either way, Sunday will go a long way in proving which team has the lighter fluid up their sleeve.
Antonio Cromartie surely must be hiding some butane under his tan blazer. While Cro might be a more recent arrival to the Jets than many of his teammates, but after one year, he’s feeling the rivalry more intensely than most – at least based on what he’s telling the press.
In this video link, Maurice-Jones Drew and London Fletcher talk to the NFL Network about faking injuries, focusing specifically on the injuries faked by the Giants last week. If you haven’t seen them, here’s a video:
Late in the 1st quarter, with the Rams driving into their red zone, Deion Grant and Jacquian Williams of the Giants quickly fell to the ground, stopping play. I think this incident wouldn’t have cause as much uproar around the league had it not been so poorly executed: after he noticed Grant was also down, Williams almost leaped back to his feet.
That having been said, I don’t think I can come out against faking injuries. To me, it’s part of the game. Football is about tempo, and when an offense is rolling, keeping the defense too tired too pick up plays quickly, it’s up to the defense to do anything it can to shift the momentum. In the case of the Giants, the fake injuries worked, arguably. The Rams were unable to score and were held to a field goal. The only real mistake the Giants made was getting caught.
What do you think? Are fake injuries part of the game, or should they be penalized?
Tagged fake injuries |Despite coming off a 32-3 win against the Jaguars last week, the Jets still have a lot of unanswered questions heading into O.co Coliseum to play the Raiders. With Nick Mangold injured, will the offensive line be able to step up? Last week’s game was won primarily by a dominant defense. Can the offense improve on its performance? In this post, I’ll examine a number of areas of focus for tomorrow’s game.
Stopping the Pass
Raiders QB Jason Campbell is a strong, accurate passer who threw for 323 yards in last week’s loss to Buffalo. Ryan has spent this past week stressing the importance of stopping the deep pass to his team, and the Jets coverage will likely be as strong as it typically is, but that will only be half the battle. If the Jets want to stymie Campbell, they’ll need to blitz well and consistently, flushing him out of the pocket and creating the kind of confusion that sends his stats plummeting. (more…)
Tagged jets, preview, raiders |“Catharsis” is a word I’ve used in a number of posts on this blog, usually invoking Greek theater while suggesting that football is a modern form of the sharing of powerful emotional experience. With that in mind, I present my 2011 season preview.
While thinking of football in terms of theater is appealing to me, in writing this, I can’t help but feel the metaphor of a television series is more apt. The NFL is a very definitely a TV show—an overwhelming vast one—with a 5-month season and irregularly scheduled weekly installments. Its dramatic arcs, though, still hew closely to the 3-act structure seen in films and plays.
Here’s what I mean:
Act I – Preseason
This is the establishing act. In this act, the motivations, settings, and characters that will be put into motion in Act II begin to be set in place. As men move between teams and free agency drives up some of their price tags, allegiances are drawn, loyalty is tested by greed, quests for glory are embarked upon, heroes become villains, and vice versa. Preseason games are often called “rehearsals,” but they are an integral part of this drama. Players, new and old, are tested, and the roles they will play in the next act become clearer. (more…)
Tagged season preview |
Toni Monkovic of NYT’s Fifth Down blog collects the thoughts of a few bloggers who are notably pessimistic about the changes the Jets’ offense this season.
What do you think? Has the receiving corps been downgraded in the offseason? What about the offensive line? Is it too early to tell?
Tomorrow’s game can’t come soon enough. As we gear up to watch the Jets take on the Cowboys during a marquee time slot, here are some of the matchups that I (and a couple of other bloggers) will be paying attention to.
Cowboys NT Jay Ratliff vs. Jets C Nick Mangold
This is a battle that’s made the lists of both ESPN’s Byran Boaddus and Ben Stockwell of ProFootballFocus, and for good reason. Nick Mangold, a Pro-Bowler, will be one of the keys in protecting Sanchez, which will be essential to establishing the Jets’ passing game. According to Stockwell:
Tagged antionio cromartie, jets, matchups, Rex Ryan, rob ryan, santonio holmes |The advantage is certainly with Mangold in the run game but if the Cowboys can establish a lead then Ratliff becomes a real threat with his ability to get into the backfield. If Mark Sanchez is forced to throw and Ratliff can get pressure straight up the middle life will become very difficult for the Jets. Sanchez’ passing under pressure was poor last season, his NFL QB rating dropped from 86.5 to 51.9 when he felt pressure. (more…)
One of the stranger aspects of football is just how acceptable bone-crushing, life-altering injuries are considered. Perhaps in response to growing media coverage of the cumulative effect that playing football has on ex-players cranial health, the NFL has adopted a set of new rules focused on player safety.
Despite that, brutal hits that often result in injury remain an integral (and exciting) part of the game. In writing this, I am in no way trying to say that my blood pressure doesn’t jump up a few beats per minute when I see (for instance) Brodney Pool ram Riley Cooper so hard his helmet flies off. In fact, I love that hit so much I’ve embedded it in this post (start at 28 seconds).
My question: how do we watch things like this happen without feeling the least bit queasy? If we saw this kind of violence anywhere but on a football field we’d feel incredibly uncomfortable, but when it’s part of a play, it’s somehow ok. To answer this question, I’ve drawn on the thoughts of theologian Mircea Eliade and semiotician Roland Barthes. More after the jump. (more…)
Tagged injuries |The New York Post‘s Burt Hubbuch has an article up suggesting that many of the team’s offseason moves–the acquisition of troublemakers like Chad Ochocinco (WR) and Albert Haynesworth (DT), the pick-up of two former Jets defensive players in James Ihedigbo and Shaun Ellis–are coming in response to his 28-21 loss to the Jets in last season’s playoffs.
The article makes the case the the Ochocinco and Haynesworth moves in particular are very uncharacteristic of the coach. Belichick’s Patriots are a straight-laced bunch. Last season, Randy Moss was cut as soon as he made waves in the locker room. Chasing outsize personalities seems almost like an act of desperation. As Hubbuch points out, the Pats have been 2-3 in the playoffs since they were caught spying in 2007.
This is all despite Belichick publicly denying his moves have any specific meaning (as he would):
“We’re trying to always add as many good players as we can to the team,” Belichick muttered in his trademark monotone recently. “It has nothing to do with any team other than our own. We’re always looking for competition at every position.”
From my point of view, I think it’s interesting that the Patriots have added two major components of the 2010 Jets defense to their team. As Hubbuch notes, Tom Brady had 36 touchdowns and 3,900 passing yards last season. The Patriots only lost 3 games in 2010, but 2 of those losses were at the hands of the Jets, whose defense seemed to be the only one in the league that could stop the steam-rolling Patriots offense. If Belichick is trying to be more competitive, one of the major places he needs to improve is against the Jets.
Tagged Bill Belichick, jets, Patriots |
Nnamdi Asomugha – Eagles
Nate Clements – Bengals
Jonathan Joseph – Texans
Chris Carr – Ravens
Ike Taylor – Steelers
Josh Wilson – Redskins
Antonio Cromartie – ?
Phillip Buchannon – ?
The Jets have been making a hard push to lock up a number two cornerback to play opposite all-world DB Darelle Revis. While the CB free agent pool is drying up quickly of top-level talent, Mr.T has been on the phone with Cromartie, trying to bring him back. Signing Cromartie, or another top CB, will allow defensive minded Rex Ryan to become more creative with his blitz schemes. What if all the energy placed into getting this player is for naught (do people still say that)? Would they be better served to focus on other needs, like a wideout or pass rushing linebacker?
What if, their number two corner is already on the roster?
Enter: Kyle Wilson
Tagged back, corner, cromartie, kyle, Kyle Wilson, lawson, wilson |
Last week, we discussed how the semiotic work of Ferdinand de Saussure can be applied to football playbooks. The idea of a “football sign” was introduced as a way to think about plays in a system of symbols, their meaning derived from the differences between them. This week, we take that kind of systemic thinking and apply it to the sport at large.
On nearly every level, football is a game of symbols. At the game’s most basic level, this seems incredibly obvious: everyone who watches football regularly is aware of the varying configurations of X’s and O’s that go into playcalling.
But football’s symbolism encompasses every aspect of the game. It’s possible to see all of football, from the ball to the field to coach’s press conferences, as different types of symbols interacting with each other. For this reason, analyzing football can be considered a form of semiotics, or the study of systems of signs and symbols.
I think that Rex Ryan’s success, or what we’ve seen of it so far, is a result of his complete control over the semiotics of the game, both on the playing field and in the way that he uses himself as a symbol.
I’ll be making my somewhat wordy case for this over the course of two weeks. This week, I’ll talk about how semiotics applies to football and how those who understand it (specifically, Buddy Ryan and modern NFL players) have molded the game. Next week there will be a lot less early 20th Century theory and a lot more about the Jets. We begin beneath the fold.
Tagged linguistics, Rex Ryan, saussure |The development of Sanchez over his first two seasons has been slow but steady. During both seasons, we’ve seen an inexperienced young quarterback overcome earlier issues and lead his team deep into the postseason. Will he continue to improve in Year 3? SNYWhyGuys tries to find out.
Sanchez’s first year was a bit rough and left a lot of room for development. In trying to tie a number to how much better Sanchez got between his first and second season, Mike Salfino of SNYWhyGuys looked at the ratio of TDs to INTS among quarterbacks since 1980 who, like Mark, threw more than 15 INTs and less than 15 TDs in their rookie seasons.
According to Mike’s calculations, Sanchez’s ratio was 0.60 in 2009 and 1.31 in 2010, a very typical improvement. If Mark continues to go the way he’s going (which, obviously, is not guaranteed), then Mike predicts about 20 TD passes and 13 INTs in 2011.
Tagged intereception, jets, Mark Sanchez, stats, touchdowns | ← Older postsNewer posts →
