The Brady Bunch said it best: "When it's time to change, you got to rearrange, who you are and what you're gonna be." Well, it is time to make a change with this Jets coaching staff. We have had games to win over the last 4 years and COACHING as lost us many of them with their conservative approach, lack of time management skills, and awful play calling.
Yes, Doug Brien MUST make one of those two field goals. The first one hits the front cross bar and it was a 47 yarder on the road in the freezing cold. The second one was a horrible kick. BUT, I can't fully blame the kicker. We had 56 seconds left in the game and we did NOT really try and move the ball closer. It is NOT a sure thing for a kicker to make a 40+ yard field goal. Coaching lost this game. Instead of trying to get closer, we had two pathetic runs and then a kneel down only because Santana Moss called time-out prematurely. Didn't Marty Shottenheimer blow the game last week with the same conservative approach in OT?
And the entire game, the play calling was pathetic. Lamont Jordan, a HUGE threat to take a long run when he touches the ball only touched the ball twice. And, worse was in overtime, it's 3rd & 7 and we call a 2 yard out to Chrebet? Does Hackett understand the rules of the game? In order to get a first down, you MUST throw the ball the amount of yards needed to get to the orange flag. Two yards means PUNT. Seven yards means the drive continues.
Enough is enough already. I'm done with Hackett's pathetic conservative play calling. The offense doesn't work. We need a change. We have a $64 million dollar quarterback and some decent receivers but we don't get them the ball. We have a horizontal offense and we need to have a vertical offense.
And then we have Herman Edwards. I'm sick of his cheerleading. You want to be a cheerleader, put on a skirt and grab some pom-poms. He's famous line was "We play to win the game." That is the biggest BS line in the world. Sometimes he plays to TIE the game at best. I have yet to see him play to WIN the game. He's the head coach. He is responsible. We had a chance to beat a 15-1 team on the road. It was all there...I was smelling 60 minutes to the Super Bowl. Brien should have made the kick but this loss rests on the coaching staff.
Absolutely right. I'm mad as hell at this coaching staff, and Edwards is in charge and should be ultimately responsible. But I wouldn't fire him. Say what you will about the games he's lost us with poor time/situation management and conservative gameplans (or not simply stripping control away from Hackett). But he's gotten us to the playoffs 3 times in 4 years. His playoff record is 2-3. This is better than most coaches in the league.
And most importantly: aside from maybe that second game against New England, this Jets team NEVER GAVE UP. They played 60 minutes every Sunday (or Saturday or Monday). They are always prepared and play with heart. They have been one of the least penalized teams in the league during Herm's tenure and near the top in turnover ratio. It's unfortunate that they hardly blew out teams and were forced to play this grind-it-out, playoff style all season. But it likely made us a better, more hardened playoff opponent. We should have beaten a 15-1 team at home in the playoffs with this style of play.
I'm more concerned about our quarterback. I'm not sure if the problem is his shoulder injury, his arm that was weak to begin with, or Hackett's conservative play-calling. But there is something horribly wrong when an NFL quarterback simply cannot hit a receiver in stride. Every ball is high or behind his targets. Santana Moss is built for speed. He's a potential game breaker every time he touches the ball. Can you remember a single time this season he caught a ball across the middle and actually took off running for a big gain? Maybe this happened twice in 18 games.
Watch what Mark Bulger does when he sees Tory Holt running free across the field. Maybe it takes more of a gun to throw these passes, rather than trying to anticipate everything and float one of those candy-ass Pennington specials with his overly articulated, limp-wristed Lamar Latrell throwing style. I dunno.
But it's not like you need a strong arm to place the ball in front of your receiver so he's in position to make a play when he's five yards away from you. Chad completely blew a play like this in the fourth quarter after that miracle Bettis fumble. That's when a real team goes on a drive and takes the game away from a broken and demoralized team. Instead, he was tentative and weak. And if Pennington can't correct this severe problem, the Jets have given $64 million to the wrong guy.
Your "Brady Bunch" quote is even more apt, considering that a real clutch quarterback with a professional arm, who goes by the name Brady will almost surely be taking his team to another Super Bowl. By comparison, our brand of football is like watching Peter Brady nursing Mini-Me as he pees on the living room floor on "The Surreal Life"
And I know that you were as sick as me after this game. That evil indigestion that sprouts from an emptiness of knowing that you should be 60 minutes from the Superbowl (a game I can't even conceive of the Jets ever playing in my lifetime). And you know what? I didn't even come back from a wrist injury and a shoulder injury and I didn't sweat out those two-a-day practices in August or study all that game film and take all those hits. So why was Pennington smiling and laughing with Ben "Big INT" Roethlisberger after the game?
In Hofstra, there is problem. And that problem is the Chad.
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