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| Christopher Reina. 17th September, 2010 - 7:14 pm
 It?s official. The HBO Cameras are gone. The championship feelings of hope have subsided. The Jets are once again back to where they were last season when Mark Sanchez was throwing the ball to the other team as much as he was to his own. Except this time, he wasn?t really throwing the ball to anyone. Against the Baltimore Ravens, the New York Jets were half a team at worst, two-thirds of a team at best in their 10-9 loss at the New Meadowlands Stadium.
Starting with the positive, the Jets defense is as elite as advertised. New York opened the game by forcing three turnovers in Baltimore?s first four drives. They also forced five punts in Baltimore?s first six-second half drives. The Jets allowed Ray Rice fewer yards (49) all game than the Patriots allowed him on his first run in last year?s playoff blowout.
New York?s special teams were also outstanding. DB Jim Leonhard looked excellent in his two punt returns in which he weaved through an aggressive Ravens cover team. Punter Steve Weatherford placed four punts inside the Ravens 20 yard line, keeping them in a survival mindset for most of the second half. Weatherford?s punts were so good, the Ravens could only muster 5 return yards the entire night for a 1.3 yard average.
Now for the other side of the coin, the Jets offense was atrocious. There?s no other way around it. The only player that looked to be into it was veteran LaDainian Tomlinson. The exiled future Hall of Famer had the most touches and desperately tried to fire up the crowd and his own offense after his big plays. The passion of Tomlinson was reminiscent of the Jets swagger from last season, but was missing from most of the offense.
Whether it was the disappearing act of Shonn Greene, complete with yet another two fumbles, the inexcusable lack of effort to hit the first down marker at the end of the game by TE Dustin Keller or Sanchez? lack of desire to take shots downfield, the offense took a step back. These factors directly led to the team?s record low 6 first downs and their 1-11 3rd down success rate.
Put it all together and you have the Jets losing by a point to another championship level team from Baltimore. Whereas Sanchez showed some timidity, Joe Flacco exposed the defensive backs not named Darelle Revis for 248 passing yards and a large part of the 125 yards that New York was penalized.
The result sends the Jets back to the drawing board on offense and to a certain extent, their defensive backfield. These are the five things they need to do to recover from this difficult loss.
1 ? Get new Jets DBs Antonio Cromartie and Kyle Wilson better in tune with the Jets defense. Yes, Cromartie had a huge interception and yes, the Ravens only scored 10 points, but both were singled out extensively by QB Flacco and exposed. It was Wilson?s penalty in the first half at the goal line that set up Baltimore?s only touchdown of the game and Cromartie also found himself victimized by Flacco on numerous occasions. Both are talented and both will be fine, but they clearly have a lot of work to do in that they continually found themselves in bad positions and had to bail themselves out by holding. Look for the defensive coaches to keep them in a film room and get them both up to speed.
2 ? Keep DB Wilson off special teams? for now. Yes, he has the ability to break big returns, but for right now this rookie needs some of his responsibilities reduced. Wilson, as stated before, looked lost more than once and will need to completely focus on his defensive duties with the Patriots coming into the New Meadowlands. There will be plenty of time as the season progresses to get Wilson back into the return game, but his abilities are more needed in the slot, especially up against WR Wes Welker. The re-acquisition of WR David Clowney this week could be a sign that this is in the works.
3 ? Don?t panic on offense, stay the course. This will not be a popular point with many pundits of the Jets, but this is a ground and pound team. The Jets defense won?t make the third down mistakes they did against the Ravens all season, which means the offense will get the chance to get into a rhythm and run the ball. Tomlinson looked great while Greene looked out of it at times. Getting hit by MLB Ray Lewis will do that to a young back. This is a team that will only be able to attack down the field when the running game is established, so don?t expect this to change too much.
4 ? Hold off giving offensive leadership to Sanchez for a year or two. I?m not saying bench Sanchez, what I mean here is that the young USC quarterback doesn?t appear to be ready to lead under fire. Allow him to manage the offense, but what became clear on Monday night was that the responsibility of inspiring the offense became Tomlinson?s. It?s not like Tomlinson stepped on anybody?s toes, but when the offense looked lifeless it was Tomlinson who did everything he could to fire up the crowd and his team. This situation is very similar to another young QB in New York who took a few years before becoming the team leader. The difference between this situation and Eli Manning?s, however, is that Sanchez has veterans on this team that support him, not ones in Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey who undermine him. Look for Tomlinson and backup Mark Brunell to mentor Sanchez into the leader he will become. He?s just not there yet.
5 ? Build on the 5 linebacker defensive formations to create confusion. With the loss of DT Kris Jenkins for the season, the Jets will have to rely on creating confusion with their linebackers in order to create pressure. The Jets have not been shy about accumulating depth at linebacker and defensive back and created some of their best pressure against the Ravens in their five linebacker, five defensive back package. The Jets have three players that have started at both DE and LB in Jason Taylor, Brian Thomas and Vernon Gholstun and it is this versatility that Head Coach Rex Ryan will exploit to overcome the loss of Jenkins while creating pressure before the return of OLB Calvin Pace.
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