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East Rutherford – A lot to get into today . . .
What made the Jets work on the ground so impressive today is Denver came into this game playing good run defense, letting up just 93 yards-a-game. They entered the game with the NFL’s ninth ranked run defense. The Jets’ offensive line and running game kicked the stuffing out of them.
As I said before – I think the Jets’ offensive line was taking too much criticism. Yes, the Jacksonville game was a debacle, but that is the best front seven in the league, and when you fall way behind, and they can pin their ears back and come after the quarterback for essentially the last three quarters, bad things are going to happen.
In the two games that surrounded the Jets-Jaguars game, the Jets loss to Cleveland, and their win over Denver, the Jets’ offensive line was pretty solid, especially running the ball.
Is this the best line in the league? No, but there aren’t the mess that some people would lead you to believe.
For goodness sake, they held the Broncos outside linebackers – Von Miller, Bradley Chubb and Shane Ray – to no sacks – that is quite an accomplishment against this group . . .
A huge factor in NFL games are individual match-ups, and you need to take advantage of mismatches, and the Jets did this on two fronts today. Broncos CB Bradley Roby couldn’t run with WR Robby Anderson, who had two long touchdowns. And Broncos right guard Connor McGovern was no match for Leonard Williams, who had two sacks . . .
Trenton Cannon as the backup punt returner is bad roster decision.
Filling in for the injured Andre Roberts, temporarily in the third quarter, he had a fumble that almost gave the Broncos the ball inside the Jets’ 20, down 21-10
I know some people might think I’m nitpicking, but it’s not like I’m second-guess. I wrote in this space recently,
September 12 – “The point here is simple – if something happens to Andre Roberts in a game, they might need to have a veteran receiver or defensive back, with experience as a punt returner, to go back to catch it.”
I like Cannon as a prospect, but punt returning isn’t his deal right now, and the Jets need to stop forcing the issue. He’s a running back/kick returner at this stage of the game.
But he can’t even be the backup punt returner right now because he flags too many punts in practice. Also, he muffed two punts in the preseason.
He didn’t return punts in college, and he told me it was because the Virginia State coaches thought somebody was better, and that is in Division II.
You can’t just anoint people into roles; they need to be up to the job. Perhaps in time, he can turn into a good punt returner, but he’s not a comfortable catcher now, so somebody else should backup Andre Roberts, somebody like Jermaine Kearse.
This was a bad decision, and it could have cost the Jets big . . .
With Trumaine Johnson out, and then Buster Skrine suffering a concussion early, you saw a lot of Darryl Roberts and Parry Nickerson at cornerback, and what this did was add a lot of speed to the Jets’ secondary. Roberts and Nickerson both run under 4.4 and cover a lot of ground, and you could see the impact of that in today’s game. Johnson, who is a good player, isn’t particularly fast, and this was creating match-up problems early in the season. While Skrine has decent speed, his constant missteps in coverage, which often leave him out of position, negates his speed at times.
October 7, 2018
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