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Only one game matters right now.
at least to the players and coaches, and that is the Jets’ opener in Carolina.
As a football player, you can never look past the next game. That is recipe for disaster.
OGAAT – One game at at time. We have heard that cliche from players for years, but it’s the best approach.
It’s fun for fans and the media to go over the entire schedule, but if you look past the next game, as a player or coach, you aren’t going to be successful.
It takes so much focus to win each NFL game, that if you start looking beyond the next one, you are making a huge mistake.
In fact, it’s not even time yet for the players to focus on that first game. Right now, they need to focus on learning their own system, with the new playbooks being installed by Mike LaFleur on offense, and Jeff Ulbrich/Robert Saleh on defense. They need to get that down first before they focus on an opponent.
The coaches can start to dabble on Carolina, but not the players. They have too many other things on their plates right now. Aside from getting the scheme down, they need to work on conditioning and a lot of technique work this time of year. Footwork, hand placement, lowering pad levels and so forth. Technique on the NFL level is huge. It’s hard to just beat the man in front of you with just raw talent, like a lot of them did in high school and college.
So this time of year isn’t about the schedule for the player.
“[You] go out there and get on the grass with the guys and start teaching your techniques and fundamentals and scheme,” Robert Saleh said a few days ago.
So the players can’t get too far head of themselves and start focusing on the schedule. They need to take a page from Nick Saban and use “process thinking” right now – just focus on the next weight they are lifting or the next page of the playbook they are learning, and not look to far ahead. Your focus should be on the next task at head and not look too far ahead. This approach has certainly worked for Saban, who just won his seven national championships, six at Alabama.
And as for the schedule, we all know why the Jets are traveling to Carolina in Week One to play the Panthers. The NFL schedule-makers, Mike North and Howard Katz, wanted that Sam Darnold vs. the Jets match-up for ratings in the New York market. It’s also obviously intriguing because it will be Darnold vs. the man who replaced him as Jets QB. The hype before this game should be quite significant.
That is totally understandable from a rating’s standpoint, but from a football standpoint if it’s Darnold vs. Zach Wilson, who we assume will start in Week One, it’s going to be a match-up of two quarterbacks who are still getting comfortable in their new offenses, and with their new teammates, so while on paper it’s a sexy match-up, on the field, if could be a little sloppy. Neither guy is going to be as comfortable in their playbook and with their teammates as they will be later in the season. So this is probably a better match-up to put on the marquis than it probably will be on the field.
May 13, 2021
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