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NFL coverage is different than the other pro sports leagues.
Because the sport is so complex, with so many moving parts, the line between fact and fiction is often blurred. There is a lot of spitballing in the media when it comes to NFL coverage. You saw that with a lot of the training camp coverage around the league over the last month.
In a sport like baseball, the coverage is pretty clean – the facts are pretty cut-and-dried related to pitching, hitting, and fielding.
In football, there is a lot more confusion between what is presented to the public and what might actually be going on.
ESPN senior writer Mike Clay seems like a fine fellow and hard-working scribe. He cranks out a lot of content for the World Wide Leader.
But something he wrote was so unique that I had to read it twice to make sure I was reading it right.
Clay rates the Jets’ off-the-ball linebackers as No. 1 in the league.
“The 37-year-old Demario Davis is back after ranking 10th in the NFL with 143 tackles last season. He has now cleared 100 in nine consecutive seasons, totaling 36.5 sacks during that span,” wrote Clay. “The future Hall of Famer will team up with Jamien Sherwood, whose 308 tackles over the past two seasons ranked second in the NFL.”
Davis is going to help the Jets in so many ways with his off-the-charts leadership, on and off the field, and his run defense, but he is a 37-year-old linebacker. You rarely see a player at that age at that position. Look, he should be solid, but let’s see how this goes during the season, for a linebacker at that age, before we get too ahead of ourselves.
As for Sherwood, he’s coming off a rough season.
“Oh God, he was awful,” said NFL Network analyst Brett Kohlmann on his Bootleg Football Podcast about the linebacker’s season last year.
Don’t kill the messenger and attack me for that quote. It’s a little harsh, but Kohlmann said it, and he actually works for the league. I don’t like using that last word he used in that statement when talking about players. I prefer less harsh words like “inconsistent.”
And this summer, in camp, while Sherwood’s run defense has been solid, we just didn’t see a ton of plays from him in pass coverage, so not sure what to expect from him in that area, but based on the past, inconsistency.
Not saying this tandem can’t be good for the Jets, but to rank a tandem featuring the oldest off-the-ball linebacker in the league and a guy coming off a tough season #1 is just bizarro and another example of how coverage of this sport is nowhere near baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer, where it’s harder to hide in plain sight . . .
Something we saw more of this summer was Jets OLB/edge players dropping into coverage.
Some wonder if they are up to doing it, but let’s be honest about what their assignment actually is when these scenario pops up. All they are basically doing is dropping into the left or right flat on occasion, covering a very limited amount of space. That is about it.
“For the most part, our assignment is pretty basic,” said Jets OLB Kingsley Engabare. “It’s not like we are taking guys all the way down the field. It’s not super hard, I don’t think.”
If you are going to play a 3-4 defense, which the Jets intend to mix in (with a variety of other looks), you need to need to OLBs to drop into those short zones at times, but let’s not act like they are being asked to cover receivers downfield.
“If we are [covering] Garrett Wilson, that is a different discussion,” Engabare said, smiling.
In other words, covering speed receivers isn’t what they are asked to do, but more like running backs, or tight ends, slipping into the flats . . .
August 27, 2026
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