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It’s time for another edition of “One Jets Drive.” Jets Confidential Publisher Dan Leberfeld checks in with a bunch of items from Florham Park . . .
Today the Jets worked on a lot of fundamentals early in practice.
The coaches were doing a lot of teaching during the individual positional drills.
Linebacker coach Brian VanGorder is an excellent teacher, and during a linebacker drill, he was yelling to his charges, “Details win, details win.”
That is so true . . .
I know it’s only his second practice back with the team, but Ryan Quigley was drawing raves today from special team’s coach Ben Kotwica for his directional punting.
Poor directional kicking is one of the reasons why Robert Malone is the team’s former punter.
Quigley had four punts, in a short period of time. that where he angled the ball effectively to the sidelines, and Kotwica was very happy.
Let’s see if he can carry it over into games.
Basically, the Jets don’t want their punters to just kick the ball straight down the middle of the field. They often want them to kick it to the sides, use some finesse, to cut down on the effectiveness of returns. Malone struggled with this . . .
What is that old expression – “absence makes the hard grow fonder?”
Jeremy Kerley took a lot of heat last year for his punt returning because many people felt he called too many fair catches.
He missed the last game with a concussion, and the Jets punt returning was shaky. Kyle Wilson was somewhat inconsistent, including calling a fair catch on the 33, when there was plenty of room to operate.
Also, there were a couple of times the Jets put no returner back, and sent 11 at the punter, but go nowhere near him.
So while Kerley isn’t going to make the Pro Bowl as a punter, the Jets are certainly very happy to get back this week . . .
I think the Jets offensive line has a chance to be pretty good this year.
True, the Patriots broke through for a few pressures and sacks, but part of that was Geno Smith holding the ball too long.
A couple of pancake blocks of note in the New England game.
Vlad Ducasse, who did a terrific job on Vince Wilfork in this game, pancaked the Pro Bowl nose tackle on Bilal Powell’s TD run.
And on a deep pass down the left sideline from Smith to Stephen Hill, Austin Howard pancaked LB Rob Ninkovich.
If Ducasse and Howard continue to progress, this line could be outstanding. You know what you are going to get from “Nick and Brick,” and Willie Colon is a tenacious run blocker . . .
Marty Mornhinweg has his weekly press conference on Thursday.
It will be interesting to see if he’s pressed on the run-pass ratio.
The Jets were running the ball very well in New England led by Chris Ivory, but didn’t seem to stay with it enough.
You ask anybody in the league, and they will tell you Marty is a pass-first, run-second coach.
But a good running game is a rookie quarterback’s best friend, so it might behoove Marty to go against his history, and dial up more runs . . .
September 18, 2013
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