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Let’s look at few more hot topics coming out of the Jets’ loss in Detroit last night. A few different items to get into tonight . . .
People clearly got ahead of themselves with the hype regarding the Jets’ secondary.
Don’t get me wrong, in time, this unit should be pretty solid, but they have a lot of work to do to get on the same page.
None of these guys played together last year. Darrelle Revis was in New England, Antonio Cromartie was in Arizona, Marcus Gilchrist was in San Diego and Calvin Pryor was with the Jets in a different playbook.
This unit looked out of sorts on their one series of the game, where Detroit marched down the field for a touchdown – five plays, 71 yards, including plays where Cromartie and Gilchrist missed tackles by being out of position.
This is going to get better, but it’s going to take some time. Not only do they need to develop chemistry as a unit, but they need to get comfortable in Todd Bowles playbook, which is new to all of them aside from Cromartie . . .
As I said last night from Detroit, it was misguided for the Jets to play Bryce Petty for basically the entire game sans the first Jets’ series.
He is a major, major project, who is almost playing a different sport than he played a Baylor, that is how simplistic Art Briles offensive approach is in Waco.
And I’m not going to sit here and criticize Petty for how poorly he played last night. He has so much to learn, it should surprise nobody how mightily he struggled.
After the game Todd Bowles said, “How else is he going to learn?”
You know what, after a while, it almost became counterproductive to learning.
It was also unfair to other players, like receivers, who were looking to show their wares.
It was painful to watch. I turned to Stu Woo of the Wall Street Journal who was sitting next to me and said, “If I see one more three yard pass, I’m going to scream.”
It was unwatchable.
Jake Heaps should have played a quarter. Like I said last night, he is actually more equipped to succeed in game action right now because he played in a pro-style offense at Kansas (under Charlie Weis) and then at Miami, under Al Golden, an Al Groh-disciple . . .
I know some people have been critical of the Jets for not keeping WR Greg Salas, who led all receivers in the game last night with five catches for 92 yards and a touchdown.
I can’t go there.
First of all, he was a free agent after last season, so he was free to go where he wanted.
Secondly, while he has talent, the guy is very injury-prone. His Jets season ended prematurely last year due to serious hamstring
injury. He also had injury issues in St. Louis and Philly.
So while he did well last night, the Jets did nothing wrong . . .
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