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Will this help?
The Jets are having a players-only defensive meeting on Friday.
They have had myriad blown assignments in their last three games. Something needs to give.
Still not sure why covering WR Dede Westbrook seemed to be an afterthought in the Jets-Jags game.
Hey, players-only meetings are great, and could help a little, but some of the problems can only be fixed with line-up changes, which Todd Bowles doesn’t seem to like to do. There are are couple of players on their defense who have some issues that I don’t think meetings or extra-coaching are going to fix, and these two players continue to really hurt the defense. They aren’t hurting the defense on purpose, there isn’t malicious intent, but they are hurting the Jets’ defense, on almost a weekly basis. And the problem these two players have are related to coverage instincts. They don’t trust their eyes, and are constantly misdiagnosing, which leads to them playing catch-up all the time. And you can teach a lot of things to athletes, but instincts aren’t one of them.
So unless there are a couple of lineup changes, some of the Jets’ problems will continue.
Why Todd Bowles refuses to pull players consistently give up big plays and contribute to losses, is something I can’t answer. I’m not a mind-reader. It makes no sense to me. It’s counter-intuitive to my world view. If somebody isn’t getting the job done, in any line of work, they need to be replaced. That is how I look at it.
So they can have all the player’s only meetings they want, but unless the coach starts benching people who are damaging their defensive production, not much is going to change.
If I owned the Jets, I would demand these changes, but the current owner, who is a heck of a nice guy, seems to like to leave his football people alone and give positive reinforcement. He’s very Dalai Lama like in his personality – a kind gentle, soul.
But you know what, when you see some of these horrific blown coverages, you don’t need to be Bill Polian to say, “Why is that guy still out there?” . . .
One defensive player who doesn’t necessarily have instinct issues, but has been almost invisible this year is nose tackle Mike Pennel. In four games, he has two tackles, one solo and one assisted.
In the off-season, the Jets gave him a new three-year deal for $10.5 million with $4.5 million guaranteed, and so far don’t have much to show for it.
Look, I know 3-4 nose tackles aren’t going to get big stats, but he’s too often being taken care of by one blocker, and that is far from ideal at that position. I will give two examples of what I’m talking about.
In the Jets’ loss to Cleveland, on Carlos Hyde’s game-winning TD run, Pennel was pancaked by the center J.C. Tretter. A 6-4, 334-pound powerhouse like Pennel (who has arms the size of most people’s legs) can’t let this happen.
In the Jets loss to Jacksonville, on a key third-and-one on the Jaguars’ first possession, Pennel was handled by a single-blocker on a Leonard Fournette gain of two up the middle. He also had an illegal hands to the face penalty in this game.
Don’t know what the problem is, but the Jets aren’t getting much from Pennel. Something is amiss here . . .
I’d write something about Isaiah Crowell getting an endorsement from a toilet paper company, which is a big deal right now with the mainstream sports media, but I think the Jets have much bigger fish to fry right now.
October 3, 2018
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