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Some random thoughts on what’s going with this team . . .
Sometimes with first-year programs, perhaps you cut them a little slack early in the season, because players everyone is getting comfortable with the new schemes, and the coaches and players are getting on the same page.
But what you do expect is progress as the season goes on.
You are seeing that with first-year programs in Philadelphia and Jacksonville.
You aren’t with the Jets, especially on defense.
Just juxtapose what Jacksonville’s defense did against Indianapolis today compared to the Jets. They gave up 23 points. The Jets gave up 45 last week. Last week, this Jacksonville defense gave up six points to the Bills. The Jets gave up 45 today.
That Jacksonville defense wasn’t very good early in the year, but they are improving, The Jets aren’t. That’s a big problem.
In the off-season, the Jets are going to need a defensive overhaul with new players and scheme changes. There is no way around it. The problems are both talent and scheme related . . .
Mike White was intercepted on the second series by Taron Johnson, On this play, he was hit as threw by DE Efe Obada, who got by Greg Van Roten. Guys like Obada give Van Roten issues at times. He’s a long, athletic defensive linemen (6-6, 265), and the undersized Van Roten, who doesn’t have long arms, sometimes struggles against these kind of players with great length.
This is probably one of the reasons that the Jets traded with Kansas City for Laurent Tardif-Duvernay (6-5, 321). It might be time for a change.
But Saleh doesn’t seem big on benching people.
There are player consistently hurting this team on defense, and they just keep rolling with them.
Joe Douglas is the football czar. The coaches report to him. It might be time for him to tell Saleh who is going to play.
It’s time for Douglas to start flexing his football czar muscles, and making demands of the coaches as far as who they are playing and ORDER strategic changes . . .
One big problem for the Jets is having a rookie head coach with coordinators who have so little experience calling plays, and also a lot of first-time position coaches. Bad mix. There are some veteran assistant coaches like offensive coach John Benton and tight end coach Ron Middleton, but many assistants are first time guys, who were assistant position coaches or quality control coaches before getting hired this year.
Look, I’m not calling for anybody to lose their job. I don’t roll that way, but just pointing out that the composition of this staff might have been a little dubious, and the Jets are getting outcoached in most games. For the second game in a row, the opposing staff thoroughly outcoached the Jets on all sides of the ball.
Once again, Douglas is the football czar. He need to be more forceful with the coaches on how the football team is being coached. It’s in wheelhouse now. In the past it wasn’t, but the corporate structure changed before Saleh was hired . . .
I can predict what is going to happen now. I’ve seen it many times before. When a backup QB gets to play, one bad game, and they are tossed aside. The starter, especially a first-round pick, is allowed many, many bad games, but the backup needs to be Johnny Unitas every week to keep the spot.
To turn on Mike White now, after his rough performance against the NFL’s #1 defense, with lousy protection, and his own atrocious defense allowing so many points it’s hard to keep up, and you have to ditch you game plan and become pass happy, is really unfair.
Today’s performance doesn’t change my opinion on Mike White. He’s an NFL starting quarterback. But I’ve seen this before, and because he had one bad game, now they have an excuse to go back to the kid, like he would have done any better against this Buffalo defense.
But backups need to walk on water, EVERY GAME, to keep the job. I’ve seen this play before. It’s totally unrealistic, and a bad way to evaluate, but it’s predictable.
However, every quarterback has bad games, but backups usually aren’t allowed to have them, if they expect to keep the starting job.
I know how this works.
November 14, 2021
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