Over from Gang Green Nation to answer Jets questions

There are a lot of threats in this offence, unfortunately we have had a problem keeping people healthy and being consistent. Cotchery is as reliable as you get, catches pretty much everything thrown his way, however he has been struggling with injuries which have limited him over the past 3-4 weeks. However it looks like he is ready to go. Braylon Edwards has shown flashes of brilliance, he seems to be in a better place mentally right now, and it’s showing on the field, those two are very big threats. also Dustin Keller, he has been really quite disappointing this season. However he had a good game against Miami, and he looks like he might finally be getting on the same page with Mark Sanchez.

I have been very satisfied with Mark, he has had two bad games, which out of 8 for a rookie with only one season starting in college is pretty good. He had the poor games against Buffalo with the 5 INT, and he had a bad game against New Orleans. Other than that he has been very solid, he can make every throw you ask, does have ball security issues, and one too many times he locks onto his primary receiver, but we have scaled back the offence for him, and he he looks much more comfortable that I thought he would at this stage in his career.

A few Jets fans have talked about trying him out as the running back, obviously joking, but he has some excellent pace, he loves the fake, and we have seen it 3-4 times this season. He is averaging over 40 yards a punt and has landed 13 inside the 20 this season. During the off-season we went through numerous punters, must of been around 5-6, but we seem to have settled for now and he is doing a decent enough job.

Rex has been a breath of fresh air, under Mangini we were kept in the dark a lot about what was going on with the team. We had no idea how serious injuries were, who was going to play, how involved they were going to be. Under Rex it’s much more open. He has had some problems with clock management, but you can understand that, it being his first year and all. He has brought a confident attitude to the team, and has made them believe that they can win any game they play in. It’s been a mixed bag of results, but he is a very well liked guy with Jets fans in general.

I think the key will really be can we stop your run game, MDJ gives me nightmares, without Jenkins in the middle we really are going to have to be on our game, and we have filled in nicely with rotational players like Pouha. I think we need to get some pressure on your QB, we have 9 sacks in the last two games, and we are starting to see some exotic blitz packages that went missing for a couple of weeks.

Jenkins was a massive loss, and last season when he was struggling with injury our defence just seemed to collapse. However so far so good, players like Pouha and DeVito, players that are not well know other than with Jets fans have been doing a great job. The Wild Cat of Miami went for around 10 yards in our last game, and that was without Jenks. He is a massive loss, but if the linebackers maintain there gap assignments we should be ok, and we have been so far.

Playmakers for me come in the form of Revis who is one of the best if not the best corner in football, he constantly shuts down receivers, he took Andre Johnson out of the game in week one and Randy Moss out in week three. Only has two interceptions on the season, but that can be attributed to clever QB’s not throwing near him. Off hand I can only remember him being responsible for one TD all season, and that was to Tedd Ginn in Miami. Calvin Pace is the other playmaker, OLB with a fantastic motor and some excellent moves, he was suspended for the first 4 weeks of the season, but has really come on strong lately. Will have to pay attention to him or he could do what he did against Oakland and just cause havoc all game.

You won’t find many Jets fans tear up on the last day of the season against the Bengals, a lot of us can’t wait to see the back of the place. It was never ours, we are just renting it, which isn’t a nice feeling. I don’t think many people mind sharing with the Giants, the problem is that the stadium right now is the Giants, and not ours at all. Where as the funding will be 50-50 on the new stadium. Also with the lighting and Jets memories built into the stadium, it will finally be a home for us. I think the majority of the fanbase is based in Jersey, so sure they prefer the location of the stadium.

Is he a big threat?

He only got 8 against Miami, but then again we were behind the majority of the second half and he did have that fumble returned for a TD. It was a little unusual to see him fumble, because he didn’t fumble the football once in his college career. They are similar backs, and we are still waiting to see him run against a decent team, he has only really performed against the Raiders. So I would expect around 10 carries if he is behind, and anywhere up to 17-18 in total if we get ahead and pound the football.

If you keep bringing the pressure he is smart enough to find his hot read and or dump off to the backs, For a rookie QB he seems to handle pressure quite well, and I would say mixing the coverage is a better way to beat him. Show him things at the line, and then drop players into coverage, earlier in the season he had a tendency to focus in on one player. If passes are falling incomplete you can see a little frustration there, something you would expect. Obviously you will need to get some pressure on him, but we deal with pass rushes quite well usually with the offensive line we have. So out of the two giving him different looks is vital, a lot of movement on defence pre-snap is probably the best possible solution. He really is a rhythm guy, if he gets in a rhythm early, it’s hard to get him out of it as an opposing coordinator. He is only the 2nd rookie QB ever to beat Bellicheat behind Big Ben.

 rookie QB that plays like a rookie QB at times. He’s pretty good when he has extra time to prepare, that was true even in college; but until he gets some more playing time under his belt he’s going to have his Jekyll and Hyde moments. Unfortunately for the Texans Sanchez had all preseason to prepare for their first game. Unfortunately for the Jags too, Sanchez gets an extra week to prepare. I expect the timing to be down. I expect some pump fakes and good play action. I even expect Sanchez to do a little running in special situations. Lots of misdirection plays.

The first few weeks Sanchez was fresh, a new approach, teams only had college film to prepare for, but that’s nothing like the system we run with Brian Schottenheimer. Teams seemed to adapt to him, and then came some poor games and he has had to adapt back. We can’t bring all facets of the team to the same game. We have a good offense, good defense and good special teams, but rarely do they all turn up on the same day. A lot of our losses have been self inflicted, missed tackles, bad clock management, but you have to give credit to your opponent for capitalizing on it. We need to bring everything together, and we are capable of doing that, and the week that does happen we will be very difficult to beat. If you asked most Jets fans before the season, many would of been happy with 8-8 or 9-7, records that are possible, the fast start increased expectations too much. The media started talking about us like we were the ones to beat, but truth be told we are still growing.

Is self inflicted?