Need to get into a better zone

As I mentioned the other day, perhaps the biggest reason the Jets could go 0-16

. . . is their pass coverage.

Hard to win in a passing league playing such poor pass defense.

The way they often play zone defense flies in the face of why zone pass defense was invented.

“The idea of the zone is to control the depth of the routes, but not necessarily stop them (from catching passes),” said one long-time NFL defensive coordinator.

In other words, you are willing to give up short gains, and then tackle well, like the Tampa Two. But all season the Jets have been giving up big chunk plays in zone concept, and it’s killing their defense.

We will see if they were able to fix this during the bye week.

Perhaps one thing that should help their zone a little moving forward is Harvey Langi playing more, along with Peanut Onwuasor, two linebackers with good range.

The burying of Langi on the bench from Weeks 2-8 is one of the great mysteries of this strange Jets season . . .

There is a difference between football intelligence and book smarts. What this means is you can be very smart out of the football world, but on the field, your high real-world IQ doesn’t translate to the gridiron.

Jets clearly need to load up on more guys with top-shelf football intelligence, considering all the mental errors you are seeing on the field his year, like 12 men on the field to defend a field goal on fourth-and-five, allowing New England’s offense to stay on the field, and score a touchdown

Another mental error in the Jets-Patriots game helped New England get in field goal range, with very little time left, and they connected on a game-winning field goal.

This was by rookie cornerback Bryce Hall, who left Jakobi Meyers wide open for a 20-yard gain, which put them in field goal range. After the reception, you could see Jets safety Marcus Maye with both hands on his helmet in essence saying by his actions – “I can’t believe we allowed that pass to get them in field goal range.”

This was a rookie mistake and bad situational football.

But I don’t blame Hall. He should not have been out there. You don’t take a guy who was out of football for year, after breaking his leg as senior at UVA, and thrust him into such a big role in his first NFL football game.

And getting back to my original point, this is a kid who has both book smarts and football intelligence, and him making a mistake on this play, had nothing to do with football intelligence, but was more a bad coaching decision to thrusting him into such a big role, so fast.

Hall has a chance to be part of the solution for the Jets’ coverage issues, not a problem.

Using him there was a “c’mon man” moment to steal a phrase from an ESPN segment on Monday Night Countdown.

I suspect that if the Jets make a coaching change after the season, and Joe Douglas is empowered to pick the next coach, there were be more simpatico between the personnel department and coaching staff about how to use players.

There seems to be a disconnect right now.

And that leads to Hall being thrown into the frying pan in his first NFL game, as a rookie, after a year off the gridiron. That’s not much of a plan for a young player to ease him back into action.

November 16, 2020

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