Content available exclusively for subscribers
New Jersey – Time for a heaping helping of Friday Night Whispers from the heart of Jets Country in Morris County. Let’s get it started . . .
Breno Giacomini (ankle) thinks there is a good chance he plays on Sunday.
But I get the sense there is a chance of a platoon, and/or, if the Jets go up big, he comes out of the game.
His ankle is in great shape. The Boston Brawler is very, very tough, but you can’t let that get in the way of pragmatism.
First off, they need him for the playoffs, so the last thing they need in Buffalo is for the injury to get worse.
Secondly, as I mentioned the other day, the Bills have some good speed rushers, and Giacomini, who struggles with speed at times when he’s healthy, could struggle even more with a bad wheel. And this is a problem. He was playing on the same bad ankle against New England. Same injury, and he was beat by defensive end Jabal Sheard for a sack leading to a fumble returned by linebacker Jamie Collins for a touchdown.
Also, I noticed early in the game, he was having issues with Patriots talented rookie defensive end Malcom (that is how he spells it) Brown.
So the Jets have a lot of things to weigh here.
Yes, it’s best to keep the line together – they have such great continuity, but does Giacomini lose a step he can’t afford to lose when playing with his malady, and can he make it worse for the playoffs?
Tough decision on Sunday . . .
This Jets team is really close right now. Great vibe in the locker room.
“I love these guys,” Eric Decker said.
Really good karma and chemistry right now in Florham Park. This is important in football, a sport with so many moving parts. The Jets are in a good place right now.
The Bills aren’t.
Their two highest paid players, both on the defensive line, aren’t being team players.
Marcel Dareus refused to endorse Rex Ryan on a conference call with JETS writers on Wednesday. That is ridiculous. The freakin ink isn’t even dry on the $100 million contract he signed at the beginning of this season. It’s one thing for Mario Williams to rip the coach (will get to him in a minute). He clearly doesn’t fit the defense, and is at the tail end of his huge contract.
I’m just blown away by Dareus. After an entire off-season and summer with Rex and his staff, he signed a mega-deal at the beginning of the season. He knew exactly what he was signing up for. Shut up. Show some dignity, man. And plus, he does fit Rex’s defense. He’s a classic 3-4 nose tackle.
And what happened with Williams with this week was bizarre. A team official leaked to John Wawrow of the Associated Press that Williams is going to be released after the season.
Look, I think most people around the NFL expected that to be the case, but for somebody from the Bills to leak that to Wawrow, right before the last game of the year, is odd timing.
Clearly the Bills were looking to embarrass Williams, who has embarrassed them by questioning Rex’s defense not once, but on about four different occasions. It was overkill. Clearly this leak was a slap upside the head.
The Bills have a big-time cultural problem.
The Jets culture has never been better.
And when you are playing a meaningless game in Week 17, and some of your players clearly aren’t
into it, that is bad news for a team.
Over my 20 years over covering the NFL, I’ve seen a lot of quitting late in the season on teams out of contention with cultural problems.
The mindset of some players in the last couple of games is often, “What can I do to avoid getting hurt.”
The last thing players want is spending an off-season rehabbing. They got this far. Why blow it in Week 17?
January 1, 2015
Premium will return by 11:30 pm on Sunday night from Buffalo.