Just went back over the Jets-Bills season finale, and OMG, a season of bad defense finished with an exclamation point!
Like many games this year, blown coverages galore, big runs up the middle galore.
Yes, the Jets were playing with some backup defenders, especially on the back end, but let’s be honest, this has been going on most of the season.
Former NFL DB Jason McCourty summed it up perfectly during the CBS broadcast of the Jets-Bills game:
“They are lacking coverage discipline.”
The linebacker pass coverage in this game was suboptimal.
Not helping matters in pass coverage against Buffalo was the lack of a pass rush. In a game, the Bills were starting four backup offensive linemen (the only regular starter was guard O’Cyrus Torrence), the Jets finished with no sacks or quarterback hits.
Bills backup QB Mitch Trubisky consistently had all day to throw behind a patchwork line and tossed four touchdowns, to go along with a 142.1 QB rating, close to perfect. He probably didn’t even need to go into the ice tub after the game. Not sure he was touched.
The Jets have some significant defensive personnel problems, and this was the case even before Quinnen Williams and Sauce Gardner were traded.
Do you remember the first Buffalo game, the one in MetLife Stadium, with the “starting” defense from the beginning of the season, and the Bills ran all over the Jets?
The Jets might need 7,8 new defensive starters, and this isn’t an embellishment.
The issues late in the season weren’t just related to having some injuries and some recently signed guys having to play.
That was a part of it, but the issues went deeper than that.
I’d send cut-ups on every defensive player on the roster, starters and backups, to Rick Speilman down on Sanibel Island and ask him, “Who should stay and who should go?”
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