Content available exclusively for subscribers
Zach Wilson said this week . . .
“I think the greatest part is nobody in that locker room cares what anybody says outside of here,” Wilson said. “If anybody mattered outside of here, they’d be coaches or they’d be players. Nobody cares. Everyone is relying on each other. We’re locked in and everyone’s just working on getting better and improving.”
But didn’t the coach say early in the season: “We’re all taking receipts on all the people who continually mock and say that we aren’t going to do anything. I’m taking receipts, and I’m going to be more than happy to share them with all of you when it’s all said and done.”
And then said the same day on the Jets radio partner that he can’t wait “to shove it down everyone’s throat when it comes around.”
Look, I’m not looking to call out Saleh for saying that. My point here is simple: Teams use outside doubters and negativity as motivation.
Their coach of their next opponent, New England, does it all the time.
And a couple of Jets players said this week that they’re “not the same old Jets.”
So they do listen to outside critics and use it as motivation, and this is nothing new . . .
This might sound cliche, but Bill Belichick coming off a bye-week is very dangerous. We should all expect new wrinkles on all three facets.
Expect a lot of nuances you didn’t see on film.
As he mentioned the other day, he’s going to work with his offensive staff on becoming less predictable. On defense, Belichick is going to put Zach Wilson under the microscope during his extra time, which could lead to some “ghosts” perhaps with new disguised coverages. Remember, Wilson had some issues a couple of weeks ago against this scheme throwing three picks. However, you could make the argument that none of the three picks were diagnostic issues. One pick, was a pass that sailed over a running back’s head, going right into the arms of a linebacker. and those two sideline picks on bootlegs, it’s hard to explain what happened there, but when you run to the sideline, you are cutting the field in half, so you are only reading half the field, so there isn’t a lot of to read.
But with all that being said, I would favor the Jets in this game right now, with the Patriots’ offensive line mess (against a very good Jets front), and the fact the Jets have more talent overall than New England.
The only point here is that expect New England to be ready to play a high-level chess match coming off a bye-week.
As for this Jets’ staff coming off a bye-week, ironically, they traveled to New England last year coming off the bye-week, and lost 54-13. So it’s hard, with that being the only anecdotal evidence we have on this Jets staff coming off a bye-week, to expect them to be as masterful as Belichick off a bye-week. But when we only have one example of a staff coming off a bye-week, there is no trend there, so it’s probably unfair to point to that game and say the Jets won’t come off the bye strong.
But you should expect the Jets to be better coming off the bye-week than last year. Why? Because this year’s team has a lot more talent than last year, especially on that defense. The defense that gave up 54 points in that game, certainly had some personnel issues.
November 11, 2022
Premium will return by 9:30 pm on Monday. No Sunday update this week since the Jets are on a bye-week.
