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There is a lot of debating going on these days involving lists. They are very popular in the current era.
Well actually, I don’t think a lot of writers like doing these lists, but they are forced to by their bosses.
From what I hear, lists gets a lot of hits for websites.
Why, I have no idea.
Lists don’t matter, championships do.
We hear so much about Chip Kelly and his obsession with football culture.
He clearly doesn’t care for players who concerned with stats and where they rank.
The Patriots don’t care about rankings and stats.
Football is the quintessential team sport, with so many moving parts working together.
So, to me, how we rank the top 25 Jets is irrelevant. It’s how all the moving parts work together.
While I’m not going to get into ranking the Jets’ top players, what I’m going to get into the coming days are different aspects of the Jets’ team, and how they are looking right now.
When it comes to the Jets secondary, it’s easy to talk about Revis, but my focus is the play of the rest of the secondary. Let’s just assume Revis is Revis. But how will the rest of the secondary fall into place? Antonio Cromartie, to me, is big question mark. People push the “Batman and Robin” angle. That is a little premature.
Cromartie is 31. Recently, we had Kent Somers on the radio show I do on SiriusXM NFL Radio. He has covered the Arizona Cardinals for a long time.
He said about Cromartie’s 2014 season in Arizona, “He was okay.”
So before we get too crazy about the Revis-Cromartie combo, we need to see what Cromartie brings to the table. Will he buy into the bump-and-run concept more than he did the last time he was with the Jets? He better. If he doesn’t, I’d open his job to a competition. The way he played press coverage the last time he was in green is unacceptable. He needs to step it up.
The nickel spot should be much better with Buster Skrine, but he needs to stop the clutching and grabbing that led to penalty issues in the past.
Behind these guys, the Jets cornerback depth is pretty good.
At the safety spots, there is talent, but many question marks. Calvin Pryor needs to stop worrying about where they play him, learn both roles (as Bowles wants him to), learn the playbook and tackle better. His likely partner is Marcus Gilchrist, who is a good cover guy, but one slight concern has to be that San Diego didn’t put up much a fight to keep him. Honestly, the only thing the Jets guaranteed him is $3.5 million for one year. And he’s coming off a shoulder injury that made him limited all off-season. Both Pryor and Gilchrist are a little undersized, so there are durability concerns.
The Jets have a couple of decent insurance policies for Pryor and Gilchrist in Jaiquawn Jarrett and Antonio Allen.
The point I’m making today is that after Revis, let’s not put this secondary in Canton just yet.
June 25, 2014
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