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A few things to get into today . . .
I will get into the Gregg Williams-Joe Vitt stuff tomorrow with breaking news today.
The Jets declined the second-year contract options on Mike Pennel, Terrence Brooks and Kevin Pierre-Louis.
Pierre-Louis doesn’t surprise me since he has a messed up shoulder and ended the year on injured reserve. Why would you pick up on a contract option on a linebacker with a serious shoulder injury? Of course you move on, and perhaps revisit things in the future when he’s healthy.
The Brooks’ situation is kind of weird. Ever since he had that two interceptions game against Miami in 2018, he’s hardly played on defense.
When Marcus Maye got hurt this year, first the Jets went with cornerback Daryl Roberts as his replacement, which didn’t work out very well. His instincts and spacing were a little off at a new position for him. They they went with Rontez Miles, a box safety who struggles in space due to stiff hips and 4.62 speed. Why this guy was consistently an afterthought with the former defensive staff is a mystery. So if you are the new staff, and you watching the film from last season, and you hardly see anything to evaluate, what is the motivation to push the GM to keep the player?
As for Pennel, when ESPN’s Field Yates announced the Jet weren’t picking up his option, this surprised some, who worship at the altar of Pro Football Focus, a analytics site that some fans and reporters view as the gospel.
Well PFF was off-target with their high praise of Pennel. He was wildly inconsistent last year, so not picking up a $1 million option was a pragmatic move by the Jets.
Does Pro Football Focus downgrade 3-4 nose tackles when they’re consistently handled by one blocker?
I don’t know, but I doubt it.
But this was a problem with Pennel.
And when a 3-4 nose tackle is consistently handled by one blocker, it’s really bad when you are playing that front, because that will often lead to blockers getting to the second level and attaching themselves to linebackers.
Pennel was a player whose motor runs hot and cold.
If you saw this guy up close, you would find him very intimidating from a physical standpoint.
He’s 6-4, 345 pounds with arms the size of most men’s legs. He’s build like a sequoia and he can lift half the weight room.
With his size and strength, there should have been more instances where he flat-out wrecked the play by blowing up the interior of opposing offensive lines, like Kris Jenkins used to do with the Jets. This rarely happened.
Just didn’t see a player who played “with his hair on fire” as scouts like to say.
The other issue is that the Jets are switching to a 4-3 front, and Pennel is a better fit in a 3-4 defense as a nose tackle. Gregg Williams likes guys with more mobility who can get up field faster.
February 19, 2019
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