Two weeks ago, the New England Patriots lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers, a 3-4 team similar to the Jets.
The Steelers did an excellent job defending the Patriots superstar QB Tom Brady.
What can the Jets take from their strategy?
“You have to match it to your players,” said Jets defensive coordinator Mike Pettine. “Pittsburgh had been primarily a zone team and had not played a lot of press coverage. I think (they) came in and surprised them with a lot of press man. They were very physical with them. To me, New England’s gameplan was built to beat zone. And I think those were some of the comments afterwards that it was a surprise to them and it was hard for them to adjust and maybe get back to some of the man-beaters. So Pittsburgh went very out of character against them. I don’t think it’s easy for us to say, ‘Well, we’ll just take the Pittsburgh plan and run it.’ That’s a little too simple of a statement.
“But with (Tom) Brady you never feel comfortable; that’s a pretty intelligent group up there. The first thing they do when they study that is, ‘Ok, this is a copycat league, somebody else is going to do this to us. What are our answers to it?’ So I think it’s an evolving process against them that you’re constantly playing chess. I think you have to do what you’ve done well. You maybe have to steal what some other people have done well. You have to do some new things.”
