| Dwayne Smith. 1st October, 2009 - 12:52 pm
 The New York Jets (3-0) 24-17 victory over the Tennessee Titans (0-3) was the classic three-act play, at least from Gang Green's perspective. The good guys established themselves early on, when quarterback Mark Sanchez led the Jets downfield for a methodical 10-play, 73 yard drive capped by a hard-nosed touchdown run through free safety Michael Griffin.
On the ensuing kickoff, beleaguered Tennessee kick returner Ryan Mouton fumbled and the Jets were able to convert that turnover into another touchdown, putting the Titans in a 14-0 hole before their offense even took the field. The beaming smile from Sanchez after that score was the look of a man who had to be thinking, this ain’t so hard.
Enter act II, in any play this is where the good guys get tested and the golden boy faced a ferocious pass rush from a desperate team. During another precision drive engineered by Sanchez, DT Tony Brown attacked the quarterback and was able to dislodge the football for DE Jevon Kearse to recover it for Tennessee. The Titans would then score the next 17 points over about 20 minutes of football from that point.
During that time, Titans receivers found openings, RB Chris Johnson made enough big runs to keep the Jets on their toes and for the first time in his career, Sanchez looked timid and perhaps a little intimidated. At 17-14 New York fans had to start thinking that ghosts of Jets past crept back into the Giants Stadium.
Act III – Facing the test and defeating the bad guys. Down 17-14, the Jets defense started forcing Titans QB Kerry Collins into throws on the run and clamped down on the running game of Tennessee. This pressure combined with some spectacular play by WR Jericho Cotchery and the return of the cool and calm Sanchez led to the Jets closing the game out by outscoring the Titans 10-0 and winning 24-17. The good guys win, in bad weather. Here are the five things that I took from Sunday’s exciting win.
1. Titans Head Coach Jeff Fisher must have the best job security for any coach in the NFL. Facing a 0-3 hole after becoming the AFC top seed in 2008, you would imagine Fisher shaking things up and replacing under-performing players. At the top of that list had to be Mouton, who fumbled twice the week before in the Titans 34-31 loss to the Houston Texans. Even with that, Mouton was allowed to return again and fumbled his first return against the Jets. Even with that, he was allowed to return punts and would fumble again. Both of these critical turnovers produced Jets touchdowns and were the difference in the game. Only a coach with no fear of being replaced could be confident enough to leave such an underachieving player in the game. In any event, Fisher signed veteran kick returner Mark Jones, who was cut by the Titans less than a month ago. The clock is officially ticking on the 3rd round rookie, Mouton.
2. Sanchez is quickly helping to disprove the conventional wisdom that quarterbacks should wait a couple of years before running an NFL offense.
Even with mistakes made due to inexperience, the first round franchise QB has shown an uncanny ability to find the resolve to overcome adversity within the same game and continues to put to rest any concern about him not holding a clipboard before starting.
3. Rex Ryan has not given up on Vernon Gholstun.
While the stat sheet showed a mere three tackles, it didn’t show a rejuvenated Gholstun, eager to put his disappointing first season behind him. Ryan assessed his game this way, “I thought Vernon did an outstanding job. He prevented a touchdown on sheer hustle, great effort. Vernon is starting to get it. I think if Vernon was a firstround pick this year, all of us would have been really happy with it, fans included. The fact that he had last year, just wash that out, because I really think we are starting to see that when he missed that time, he never really caught up. We are seeing the Vernon Gholston that I think this organization thought they were getting when they did draft him. We are proud of the way he's playing. We really think he's coming on, and we think he'll be a major contributor in our plans as we move forward.”
4. Leon Washington will slip past Thomas Jones as the 1a running back very soon.
While this has been a true time share from Week 1, a couple of trends are emerging. Washington is getting red zone carries this year and Jones is not being firmly established as the feature back on long drives. This has completely changed from last year to 2009 where Jones had 70-80% of the touches. Last week, Washington had 13 touches along with his three kickoff returns and Jones had 14 carries. Looking deeper into the even split is the glaring 52-22 yards advantage Washington had. Factoring in the sudden dropoff of production from running backs over thirty along with the big play ability of Washington, the Jets clearly will continue to expand the workload for the best all-purpose New York Jet since Bruce Harper.
5. Cotchery is a go-to, number one receiver and playing with a chip on his shoulder because of all the people who doubt this.
He’s been hearing the whispers since Laveranues Coles was let go that the Jets needed to go out and get a legit number one receiver. If the New York didn’t grab Sanchez in the draft, the push would have been for a receiver. Then when receivers like TJ Houshmandzadeh, Chad Ochocinco, Brandon Marshall and Terrell Owens appeared to be available, Jets fans eagerly anticipated a move to be made. So instead of going out and making statements against the perceived snub, Cotchery went to training camp and worked himself into proving himself on the field and he hasn’t disappointed. Whether it’s a tough grab over the middle, breaking tackles for some extra yards after catch or a spectacular downfield, Cotchery has the tools to be the best kept secret among NFL receivers. Then again, if he keeps having 100+ yard games with a touchdown, it won’t be secret for long. |
