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RB Joe McKnight might have made the best point about the transition from Brian Schottenheimer to Tony Sparano at the Jets’ offensive coordinator spot.
“It’s a different mentality with Coach Sparano. He’s the type of person that’s like, if you can’t stop him, he’ll keep doing it,” running back Joe McKnight said. ““That’s the kind of mentality I think if we had last year, I think we could have done better.”
I always felt this was a big problem under Schottenheimer. B-Schotty seemed obsessed with spreading the wealth, to a fault.
And I wrote this several times over the years.
Let’s go back a couple of years. Let’s say Jets opponents were double-teams Santonio Holmes and Braylon Edwards. Then you know what you do, you throw to Jerricho Cotchery over-and-over-over. Let him catch 12-13 passes. Who cares about spreading it around? If you have a favorable matchup, wear it out.
When was the last time you saw a Jets receiver with double-digit catches in a game? I can’t remember.
For some reason, Schotty wasn’t wired that way. I never understood this. Maybe he was trying to appease egos.
As McKnight said, with Sparano this is going to change.
I will give you a perfect example. Kyle Wilson had a really hard time covering Miami WR Davone Bess, so the Dolphins would throw to him consistently in matchups with the Jets.
And this riding the hot hand philosophy will be very helpful to Mark Sanchez.
Sanchez is so-so at reading defenses, and often struggles getting to his third or fourth read.
So it stands to reason that if the Jets start focusing on throwing to targets that have favorable match-ups – one-on-one’s, Sanchez will love this. There will be less bells and whistles, and more simple reads . . .
Rich Cimini wrote today that Joey Clinkscales left the Jets because Mike Tannenbaum wasn’t listening to him enough on draft picks.
Clinkscales, who was the Jets VP of college scouting, left for the Raiders, last week, to join his old friend, GM Reggie McKenzie’s, front office.
You can understand Joey’s frustration. The Jets have a lot of cooks in the kitchen.
The owner’s involved, Tannenbaum is very close with assistant GM Scott Cohen, and he’s got a big say, Terry Bradway’s in the mix, and obviously Rex Ryan.
Mike Westhoff also has a big say. He pushed for third round pick Demario Davis, who he had rated as one of the better special team’s players in the draft.
I don’t know about you, but I’m not listening to the special team’s coach too heavily in the early rounds. Maybe you lean on him in the late rounds with guys like Josh Bush and Antonio Allen, but not early.
Joey just got fed up, and bolted. He feels his close friend McKenzie will listen to him more.
And don’t be shocked if the Raiders claim a few Jets players during the cut downs this summer.
Obviously Joey has a great feel for the players on the Jets roster, and the Raiders roster is going to have a big turnover this summer.
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