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Not sure how much this is going to change unless the coach changes his ways.
I’m talking about the Jets’ penalty problem last year. They had 119 penalties for 1,035 yards.
“You don’t write it off at all — you address it,” Todd told reporters at the NFL owners’ meetings in Orlando. “And there’s a lot of things I have planned to address it, as soon as they get back in the building. But it was a big deal.”
How is he going to address it?
We will see, but unless he gets tougher with players, I don’t think anything is going to change?
What do I mean get tougher with players?
How about benching or cutting players who commit a lot of penalties?
Also, when have you seen one of those stern sideline talks from the coach with the penalty-laden player, that you would often see from Bill Parcells, Bill Belichick, John Harbaugh?
Buster Skrine committed 13 penalties last year which was a most by an AFC defensive back.
Any benchings? Any sideline lectures? Not that I’m aware of?
You have to get player’s attention to help cut down on penalties – cutting some, or benching some, is helpful.
Job security is a great wake-up call.
But Bowles said at the owner’s meeting it’s not about Skrine or any individual.
“There are no factors, there’s no specific person,” he said. “We just can’t have ’em. You can’t have ’em at certain times. We have to be more aware of where we are on the field, where the next person is. Whether it’s an offensive holding or a DPI, we’ve got to be better than that. Penalties hold us back. They hold us back from getting off the field, from continuing drives. So we know we’ve got to get better than that.”
Skrine said last year, “”My whole career, I’ve had penalties,” he said Wednesday. “So they don’t bother me. I do want to fix it, because it hurts the team. But I play man-to-man [coverage] almost every down.”
So penalties don’t bother him, and the coach doesn’t discipline him for committing any penalties, so do you think there is going to be a big improvement here?
Rhetoric isn’t going to fix this.
Fear for jobs will. Is the coach willing to go down that road? Based on the past, likely not.
Will he bench a sub-package guy like Darryl Roberts at times?
Yes.
But will he bench a starter?
Not often.
And this isn’t just about “certain individuals.” Not all Jets players are penalty-prone.
Guys like Skrine, Mo Claiborne, Darron Lee and Brian Winters need to cut down on penalties.
So if Bowles is serious about cutting down on the team’s penalties, he can’t worry about hurting the feelings of starters, or the media reaction if he benches somebody. You can’t worry about making players uncomfortable or embarrassing them. This isn’t T-Ball.
That is what great coaches do. Team speeches aren’t going to fix this.
Actions speak louder than words.
March 30, 2018
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