Jets-Bengals Stuff

Two weeks in a row . . .

the other team’s top receiver was left wide open in the middle of the end zone for a touchdown.

It happened against Cleveland with Amari Cooper, and then it happened this week with Jamar Chase.

How can that happen, especially two weeks in a row?

Sometimes, let’s say a #3 WR or a #2 tight end will get wide open because there is so much focus on the star players. That is not acceptable, but it’s a little more understandable.

But how, under any circumstances, do you not cover, Cleveland’s Cooper or Cincinnati’s Chase, especially in the end zone? How is that even possible?

D.J. Reed held no punches after the game, and said they need to have a defensive meeting to figure out what is going on, and said “maybe they are doing too much” schematically.

A few days before their game against the Las Vegas Raiders, Tennessee Titans coach Mike Vrabel, with his team sitting at 0-2 said, said we need to “do less better.”

Maybe that is what the Jets need to do on defense – “Do less better.”

They picked a player with elite man-to-man cover skills, in Sauce Gardner, and he’s being asked to play zone, at times, and he’s struggling with it, struggling with passing guys off to others.

You saw Gardner with a great PD on a deep pass to Chase down the right sideline playing man-to-man today.

Clearly he’s still getting comfortable with some of the zone stuff . . .

Mike White threw for 405 yards and three touchdowns in a win over the Cincinnati Bengals last year against a defense that pretty much came back intact and that has the same coordinator, running the same scheme. Any consideration to putting him in the game today with the Jets struggling?

“No consideration,’ said Jets coach Robert Saleh.

A little confusing.

Why are they marginalizing White like this?

What did he do to deserve this?

Some might theorize they are concerned it would be harder to go back to Zach Wilson if White does well than go back to Wilson from a 37-year-old QB at the end of his career . . .

The Jets had two veterans disappoint them on the drive that made it 14-6.

First John Franklin-Myers’ unnecessary roughness on Joe Burrow on 3rd-and-9, on an incompletion that would have forced the Bengals to punt,

And then three plays later, on a 56-yard TD pass to Tyler Boyd. It should have been stopped after a moderate gain, but safety Jordan Whitehead went for the kill shot, instead of a sound wrap-up tackle, and the receiver bounced off him, and went the distance.

JFM is a heck of guy, but some might argue that perhaps he hasn’t lived up to the massive contract Joe Douglas gave him in the middle of last season, a four-year deal for $55 million with $30.2 million guaranteed.

Some might argue the Jets rushed into this deal and there wasn’t enough evidence to pay the player that handsomely. Look, the player has talent, but is a tad inconsistent, and disappears for stretches too often. Remember, the Rams released him after one season. Clearly they felt something was a little amiss.

As for Whitehead, he’s another really good guy, and a big-time hitter, but Tampa Bay didn’t love him in coverage, and let him walk without a fight.

Not being dismissive of these two players, who have talent, just pointing out that their prior teams moved on from them for certain reasons.

It doesn’t mean those teams were right, just saying they had their reasons . . .

As we reported the other day, George Fant has been limping around in practice the last couple of weeks, so the fact that he had to leave the game today with a knee injury shouldn’t be a huge surprise. The guy is tough as boot leather and has tried to fight through this issue, but clearly he’s got a somewhat significant knee issue.

Getting Duane Brown off injured reserve after the Pittsburgh game could be helpful to the Jets.

September 25, 2022

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