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Since the Jets’ elevation of safety coach Chris Harris from secondary coach to defensive coordinator, the safety play has not been good.
It can’t be easy to coach the safeties and run a defense, especially if you have never run a defense before, which Harris has not.
The amount of blown coverages we are seeing from Jets safeties is far from ideal.
There is a lot of praise for Malachi Moore in the media and from the coach (when asked about him), but this is another example of why the NFL is the worst covered sport.
You constantly see stories written about players playing well who aren’t.
That doesn’t happen in any other sport.
It’s pretty amazing. There were a bunch of questions today about how well Jowon Briggs is playing. Great guy. Smart guy. Does get some QB pressure with his interior quickness on occasion, not doubt, but the Jets’ run defense up the middle against New England, was awful, like many games this season.
And the Patriots were playing without their starting left guard and left tackle.
With all the blown coverages by this secondary over the last month, how on earth could anybody claim a safety on this team is playing well? That is Kabuki Theater.
Chris Olave, the Saints #1 receiver and former first-round pick, got behind the Jets’ secondary for two wide-open TDs.
Patriots QB Drake Maye was 19-21 for 256 yards and five touchdowns and left the game in the third quarter.
No, Moore is not playing that well, and neither is anybody else in the Jets’ back seven over the last month.
Yes, he recovered a fumble and forced another, but what about his work in coverage?
How the hell do you leave that out coverage work when writing stories about a safety?
And this poor kid Dean Clark, starting next to Moore at safety, he is giving his best shot, but he’s struggling mightily. Might not have been ready to start so soon.
There should have been veteran safeties on the practice squad a little sooner. Now they have young vets Keidron Smith and Chris Smith, both added in the last couple of weeks.
Maybe they should have had some young vet safeties on the practice squad sooner.
Clark, an undrafted rookie free agent from Fresno State, was not a player who should have been a few injuries away from starting.
The amount of blown coverages in the Jets’ secondary over the last month will take your breath away watching.
This isn’t meant as a shot at Clark, who is a great young man, but perhaps starting this project before he was ready is what you do when you’re tanking.
And that is what Bart Scott, who works for the team’s official website and media partner (SNY), said on Sunday.
“The fact that we put (quarterback) Tyrod Taylor down and we didn’t start him let us know that the mission was to lose, competitive tanking,” Scott said. “It wasn’t competitive, it was just tanking.”
So if you are starting UDFA Brady Cook at QB, and UDFA Clark at safety, and other longshots, perhaps Scott is on to something.
Tyrod Taylor can play this week, but Glenn announced today that Cook will start the season finale in Buffalo.
So I asked Glenn today if he feels Cook gives them the best chance to win at the position.
“He gives us the best chance to win,” Glenn said.
Not putting Taylor in Canton, but it would be hard to find anybody employed in the sport of football, who would agree that Cook gives the Jets a better chance to win than Taylor.
Taylor, in his 15th season, is 29-31-1 as a starter, and there are very few defensive looks he hasn’t seen. Cook is 0-3, and was described as a “deer in the headlights” by Jaguars radio analyst Jeff Lageman during a Jacksonville blowout of the Jets a couple of weeks ago.
Also, Taylor has played in a lot of loud, challenging road environments over the course of his career, like the Jets are facing in Buffalo on Sunday. Playing on the road at Buffalo, one of the loudest stadiums in the league, can be daunting for a rookie.
Glenn can start anyone he wants. He’s the boss, and he has full support of Jets owner Woody Johnson. SI’s Albert Breer announced this week that there is no consideration by the Jets’ top brass (which is Woody, Ira and Hymie) of firing Glenn after one season.
But for Glenn to say he’s starting Cook over Taylor because, “[Cook] gives us the best chance to win” is astonishing logic.
Unless you are tanking.
And somebody who works for the team’s website said they are.
December 31, 2025
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