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The New York Football Jets cornerbacks, who haven’t distinguished themselves through two weeks, are going to have a herculean challenge this week
with the Dolphins’ wide receiver trio of Jarvis Landry, Kenny Stills and Devante Parker. This isn’t a match-up that favors the Jets.
Jay Cutler gave us a little insight to how he feels about playing with the 6-3 Parker, a former first round pick of the Dolphins out of Louisville.
“As long as there’s just one [defender], the ball’s going to go up to him,” Cutler said about Parker.
The Jets cornerbacks better get their collective acts together or this could be a long afternoon for them . . .
Speaking of the Jets corners, this is a big week for Juston Burris, coming off a game he gave up two touchdowns in Oakland.
Burris told the Newark Star-Ledger,” “I know that I can go out here and lock these guys down,” Burris said about the Dolphins-Jets game. “It’s not that I lost any confidence. It’s just that I need to build up the confidence in the coaches, that that one game, that really wasn’t me — and that’s not how it’s going to be going forward. I know I’ve got the ability to dominate in this league.”
We will find out quite a bit this week if it is him. One bad game is one bad game. Two bad games is a trend. As I’ve said before, he didn’t have a great camp, but had been anointed already by the Jets’ brass before camp, so he didn’t lose his spot.
One rabid Jets fan tweeted after reading the Star-Ledger article, “He’s young, the whole point of this year is to get guys like him reps.”
While I have tremendous respect for this fan, I think this thinking can be very dangerous.
It’s very, very dangerous because you can’t assume that time is going to work out all the kinks with players. Some it can, some it can’t.
You can’t assume that time will heal all shortcomings.
Burris is a great kid, and a hard-worker, but he has stiff hips, which hurts his cutting ability with shifty receivers. He might not be able to overcome that. We shall see.
Time isn’t the answer for all prospects. That is fool’s gold to think that way . . .
With so many new players in the Jets’ passing offense, there are going to be chemistry issues at times. A perfect example was in the first half of the Jets-Raiders. The Jets were down 14-7, and they were driving. They had a third-and-one, Josh McCown threw a quick pass to Will Tye on the short right side. It bounced off his hands incomplete. McCown either threw it too quickly or Tye didn’t turn around fast enough. Bottom line – chemistry issue – they have only been working together for three weeks. They had to settle for a field goal. This drive should have continued. This was a very makable throw-and-catch.
I asked McCown about this earlier this week.
“It was unfortunate,” McCown said. “It would have been great to keep that drive going right there. I look for in the coming weeks, those things not to be an issue exactly. It’s just time together.” . . .
September 22, 2017