Content available exclusively for subscribers
Morris County – A heaping helping . . .
Marcus Maye is a talented player, but like a lot of safeties, he’s had a hard time staying healthy. He is out this week with shoulder and finger injuries. After last season, he needed ankle surgery and he broke his leg as a senior at Florida. It’s not his fault. The position is brutal and unforgiving. Look at Doug Middleton landing on IR two years in a row. Rontez Miles needed off-season knee surgery and started the year on PUP. Former Jets safety Calvin Pryor has major problems staying healthy with Gang Green.
The safety is so injury-laden, that most players at the position don’t get that big-money second contract, which is what most players are striving for, the second-deal after your rookie contract.
And teams that do give monster second deals to safeties, often end up regretting it, with the situation with Kansas City’s Eric Berry being a perfect example.
On February 28, 2017, the Chiefs signed Berry to a six-year, $78 million deal with $40 million guaranteed. He’s played just two games in the last two years, first due an achilles injury, and not a foot ailment.
So in restrospect, Mr. Coffee picking safeties in the first two rounds of the 2017 draft was probably a little bit too risky based on the injury rate at the position. Adams has held up, Maye has not.
While it’s important to stick to your draft value board, but that doesn’t mean you keep picking the same position over and over based on who is next on the value board. Because, theoretically, if you strictly stick to the value board the whole draft, couldn’t you possible pick seven safeties if they happen to be the best value on your board in each round?
The second-round continues to hurt the Jets’ growth as a program, and there is no way around that . . .
With Maye out, this could lead to another issue for the Jets.
Ostensibly, the next man up is Miles; Todd Bowles is big believer in his depth chart.
But Miles, who is tough as they come, and a heck of a special teams player and solid BOX safety, struggles in space due to stiff hips and 4.62 speed. You saw that last year. Not his fault. It’s how he’s built. Not a lack of effort or will.
But if the Jets start Miles, instead of the much more mobile Terrence Brooks, they are inviting trouble, and expect the Patriots to target Miles in space.
Will Bowles learn from the past and go with Brooks for Miles against a pass-happy team.
We shall see. Keep an eye on this one . . .
Speaking of Bowles, he keeps saying something about the QB position I respectfully disagree with. Now it’s possible it’s just coach-speak, so I don’t want to be too critical.
He was asked about Josh McCown possibly being rusty in his first start since he hadn’t played in so long.
“It’s not on Josh, it’s on the offense in general,” Bowles said on Friday. “As a team we have to play better. It’s not just one person, everybody has to play better. Everyone plays better then we’ll do better.”
Of course the Jets’ offense needs to play better as a collective than they did against Buffalo, but let’s not forget this is a QB-driven league. It’s hard to win games consistently without consistent QB play. And how often do elite quarterbacks lead their teams to victories, even with offensive line or receivers issues? Guys like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees do this all the time.
So I don’t subscribe to the theory that it’s always about all 11 offensive guys playing well. Of course that is ideal, but this is a QB-driven league, you can’t make all 11 guys on an offensive unit of the same import. In this league, it just doesn’t work that way . . .
As JC first reported earlier this week, with left guard James Carpenter out, the Jets are going to go with Spencer Long at left guard and Jon Harrison at center. Long has a lot of experience at guard from his time in Washington and at Nebraska.
November 23, 2018
Premium will return by 11:30 pm on Sunday.