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New Jersey – We tie up a few loose ends from the game, and look at the Mark Sanchez situation. The quarterback had surgery today . . .
One thing that was obscured by the performances of Geno Smith and Mo Wilkerson in Atlanta, was the fact that David Harris had 14 tackles.
He might be having his best season as a Jet . . .
Another guy who quietly played very well was Darrin Walls, against his first team in the NFL, the Atlanta Falcons.
He made a lot of plays, like on the first series when he had a near Pick Six.
In the fourth quarter, Walls drew a pass interference call on Roddy White.
Also in the fourth, Wall had a defensed pass on WR Harry Douglas in the end zone. Also late in the game, he had one of the better defensive plays of the game, when he stopped the super-quick Douglas in this tracks, in the right flat, after a short pass. Jon Gruden loved this play.
Kudos to the Jets former GM, Mike Tannenbaum for grabbing this guy after Atlanta released him on an injury settlement. You generally don’t find starting quality corners on the waiver wire . . .
During training camp, the Jets’ front office, and the beat writers, had a little dispute about what can be reported during open practices.
The issue was over trick plays.
The writers’ complaint was simple – they were told they couldn’t report plays that fans in the stands were tweeting about.
They felt this was a double-standard.
So some beat writers resorted to re-tweeting fans, as a loophole to get the information out there.
This ticked off some in the organization.
Why am I getting into this now?
Because one of the summer plays, that caused a tiff between the team’s PR department and some writers, was Sheldon Richardson lining up as a fullback on the goal line.
And that is exactly what he did in Atlanta, and this helped the Jets score a touchdown early in the fourth quarter.
Richardson ran a route to the short right side from the fullback spot, and this drew safety William Moore up to the defensive tackle, who was running a route on the goal line.
So when Moore came up to Richardson, this left Kellen Winslow wide open in the back of the end zone. Moore had to choose between the two players, and came up to his fellow Missouri Tiger.
This was the exact play the Jets ran that day in the summer.
The only difference was that they threw to Richardson that day in training camp . . .
Mark Sanchez had shoulder surgery today, ending his season.
Sanchez hurt his shoulder, in the Jets’ third preseason game, playing with a backup line, in the fourth quarter, against the Football Giants.
Some considered putting Sanchez in that game, at that point, was a dereliction of duty by the coaches.
To this day, we have no idea why he was sent at in at that point.
Some think the reason the Jets delayed putting Sanchez on short-term IR initially (remember, it took several weeks), was because they wanted to downplay the severity of the injury.
“It was spin,” one Jets beat writer theorized to me recently.
The beat writer, who works for a very prominent paper, feels a quick decision on IR, would have made it look even worse.
By waiting, and holding out hope he could come back after a short rehab, it didn’t make the decision to put him the game, look as bad, perhaps.
That theory can’t be proven.
But there is no way around – it was a bad coaching decision.
And with the surgery now done, Sanchez is probably done with the Jets.
October 8, 2013
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