A Little Luck and Timing Are All the Jets Need

Week 3 saw the performances of the Giants and Jets diametrically opposed to each other. While the Giants put together a sorry display against a Seattle team that looks to be the cream of the NFC crop, the Jets battled a Buffalo team that had them constantly on the verge of collapse in the course of the first half and used a bit of luck and some well-timed big plays to turn the tide toward victory in Buffalo.Before the start of the season, Giants fans might have been comfortable with the idea of going 1–2 after a difficult first three games of the season, but is there anyone at this point who’s as confident about the Giants getting the nine or 10 wins they’ll need to make the playoffs? The clearly superior Seahawks, a class above the team that had Jay Feely to thank for last year’s win over New York, illuminated every fault that the Panthers did in last season’s playoff loss: Eli Manning’s skittishness, Plaxico Burress’s questionable desire, Jeremy Shockey’s petulance, and a pass defense that looks, at worst, no better than it did last season. It’s hard to envision a team that looks this bad and this disinterested still harboring playoff hopes, let alone the hushed chatter of a Super Bowl run that came out of some quarters in the preseason. The upcoming bye week will, undoubtedly, involve many a Tom Coughlin speech about grit and pride and some practices that anonymous veterans will leak complaints about, but all the sweat in New Jersey might not be able to save such an obviously flawed team’s season.If the Giants were lowbrow slapstick this week, then the Jets were an ironic comedy, succeeding in the unlikeliest of ways as part of their comeback. Every bad pattern the Jets developed in the first half was overcome in the process of their turnaround against a Bills team that has shown serious signs of improvement under Dick Jauron during the first three weeks of the season.During the first quarter, though, the Jets were lucky not to have been knocked out by the Bills in much the same vein that the Giants were by the Seahawks. After Roscoe Parrish blew by the Jets’ defense on the second play of the game (and in particularly Kerry Rhodes, whose atrocious angle of pursuit sprung Parrish) for a 51-yard touchdown, the Jets offered little in resistance. The Bills’ next drive took them to the Jets’ 35-yard line, where an ill-advised fake field goal on 4th and 3 gave the Jets the ball with solid field position. After a second Jets punt, the Bills drove all the way to the Green 19, when the first of several uncharacteristic big plays occurred for the Jets. Rhodes’ sack of J.P. Losman forced the Buffalo quarterback to fumble, with Jonathan Vilma (who had an awful day by his standards, including a terrible holding penalty in a 2nd and 20 situation) recovering the fumble.What was uncharacteristic about the sack and fumble was that it was the first evidence that the Jets were actually attempting to tackle a Bills player behind the line of scrimmage. Indeed, the Jets front seven was impotent; while Willis McGahee’s line of 150 yards on 26 carries is the marker of a good day, what’s even more notable is that it wasn’t a game of one huge run and 12 small ones, but instead consistent success on the ground. Of his 25 carries, 15 of them went for five or more yards; furthermore, this performance wasn’t a function of McGahee dancing around defensive ends or busting through weak tackling by safeties. Instead, McGahee was bursting through the hole created by his linemen often untouched, not receiving contact until four yards beyond the line of scrimmage.The same was true of the passing game: While Chad Pennington was often hurried by the third step of his drop, Losman had enough time to take a seven- or eight- step drop, spend several seconds scanning the field, and employ his howitzer of an arm to throw downfield. Fortunately for the Jets, his mind and eyes aren’t up to the same standards, leading to an interception at the end of the third quarter that stopped what was a promising drive at the Jets 24. The Jets did not collapse Losman’s pocket until 8:09 was left in the third quarter.The play that won the Jets the game, though was remarkably similar to the sack that they may have saved the Jets the indignity of a blowout in the first quarter. Again, it was Kerry Rhodes sacking Losman and forcing him to fumble on what appeared to be the same exact blitz.This time, Victor Hobson’s recovery and subsequent scamper to the end zone gave the Jets an 11-point lead that they would not relinquish.The final twist, though, was how the Jets scored their final touchdown of the game.While the offense had been kept relatively in check by the Bills’ defense, what was very noticeable was how the Jets were employing Chad Pennington. On a windy day in Buffalo, it was clear that they had no intention of throwing out patterns to the sideline; instead, all of Pennington’s passes were either screens, short passes over the middle to Chris Baker, or a slant to Laveranues Coles. Once the Jets’ final drive started, though, Pennington’s first pass was a 16-yard out to Coles. The connection that was spoken of so fondly upon Coles’s return last year was reignited for a quarter, with Coles catching four straight Pennington attempts to move the ball down the field for a Cedric Houston touchdown with 4:10 to go. The resulting PAT put the Jets up 15 and all but sealed an impressive come-from-behind win.Mr. Barnwell is a writer for FootballOutsiders.com

A Little Luck and Timing Are All the Jets Need

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