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Much bigger challenge in this area . . .
Sam Darnold and the Jets’ offensive line facing a much better pass rush than last week with Miami coming to town.
Last week, they faced a Detroit Lions team, with one good pass rusher, Ziggy Ansah, and he got hurt in the first half, so Darnold had all day to throw on most downs.
This week, they face the combo of Cam Wake and Robert Quinn, one of the better 4-3 end combos in the league. Wake, a long-time Jets nemesis in Miami, has 92 career sacks. The Dolphins acquired Quinn from the Los Angeles Rams this off-season, and he had 62.5 sacks his first seven seasons in the league.
“Wake on one side, and Quinn on the other, that is a ‘look-out’ for quarterbacks,” said CBS analyst Phil Simms.
They also have some good depth at end with Andre Branch, Charles Harris and Williams Hayes in reserve.
We will find out a lot more about Darnold’s ability to deal with pass-rush pressure this week . . .
I mentioned yesterday that Dolphins QB Ryan Tannehill has completed at least 70 percent of his passes in three straight games and five of his last six.
While he deserves credit for that, and Adam Gase has done a nice job coaching him, we need to add a little context to that. He tends to go to a lot of underneath stuff.
As one NFL player put it, “Everyone knows Tannehill is a dunk and dunk guy who will take his shots (downfield) here and there.” . . .
Clearly Marcus Maye isn’t going to play this week. He’s still not practicing.
Look, I know this means very little, but watching him walk around on the practice field, and in the locker room, there is no boot, no special wrap, nothing visible on his bad ankle/foot. And he when he left the locker room, he was wearing regular sneakers, not sure if he even had socks on, and was walking around like a regular guy with nothing wrong with him.
Once again, this means absolutely nothing, because I’m not doctor or a trainer, and I’m by no means questioning his toughness or the severity injury.
Just making an observation, which probably means very little.
But if you didn’t know he had a foot/ankle problem, it would be hard to tell looking at him walking around . . .
Jets linebacker Neville Hewitt returned to practice today from a knee issue. He had medical sleeve (I believe these promote healing) on his left leg to help the knee.
Hewitt has a chance at playing. I saw him running down on kicks with the Jets’ special teams unit today.
Hewitt played for the Dolphins the last three years, so he knows a lot about their personnel.
I asked him about their weapons today, and obviously he talked about wide receiver Kenny Stills and running backs Frank Gore and Kenyan Drake, but he also raved about WR/KR Jakeem Grant, who might be the fastest player in the league.
He’s also about 5-6, so he’s very hard to wrap up with his low center of gravity, speed, quickness and elusiveness in the open field, which was on display last week on his 102-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against Tennessee.
“He’s a guy tough guy to tackle – so low to the ground and he’s fast and shifty,” Hewitt said.
September 13, 2018
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