Humble Pie and Free Passes

Okay, coming into this season, we here at JFTD, like the rest of you had some expectations set for this team. Within those expectations, were 2 Free passes. The first one, we will hand out to Mr. Sanchez for his “Ugly Rookie Mistake Game Free Pass” against the Saints. The second, along with a large slice of humble pie, we are serving out the “Rookie Head Coach Free Pass” for his poor performance against the Dolphins.

In my mind, I feel very strongly that poor coaching played a big part in the loss on Monday Night. There were 2 glaring mistakes that stood out.

#1 – When it mattered most, Rex Ryan refuses to change personal to stop the run. The funny part about this, is he actually did in the 3rd Quarter when they played a “Bear” defense with an extra D – Lineman – and it actually worked. However in the 4th quarter, he was attempting to stop an offense that included 5 O-Lineman, 2 TE’s, a Very good blocking FB, a Very good Blocking RB (Cobbs) and 2 strong and powerful workhorse running backs in Brown and Williams. I can’t for the life of me understand why he didn’t take out Jim Leonard and put in an extra D lineman or Linebacker. As much as we love little Jimmie, he is not blowing up a block from anyone on the field in the Dolphins Wildcat formation. We needed more beef and penetration up front to support our LB’s who were getting blown off the ball consistently, and Rex stubbornly played a 3-4 or 4-3 base most of the fourth quarter.

#2 – Take a freaking Defensive Timeout. Now there has been a ton of criticism of Rex not using his timeouts, but more for not saving time for the Jets to go down the field and try and win the game after a Miami score. I feel like on big 3rd downs, he should have taken a good look at the package Miami put out there, called a time out and forced them to think about doing something else and ensuring that he can Sub in the right package he had prepared for it. I hate to say it, but there is certain coach up in New England who does this all the time and how has it worked out for him? He knows that with all the formations and personnel changes these days, it pays to take your time and make sure you have the right defense on the field to win a big down late in the game.

Now I can only give this free pass if good ole’ Rex is willing to learn from it. The greatest fear is that his over confidence in his defense will prevent him from making good coaching decisions in the future. The Jets D got served some humble pie big time in Monday night, it’s going to take a few games, especially the Nov. 1st game against Miami… to see if they actually eat it.

Advertisement