Sure, the defense has some nice numbers. That’s mostly due to the play of cornerbacks Darrelle Revis and Antonio Cromartie. It ignores the fact that outside of those players and tackles Sione Pouha and Mike DeVito, the Jets are old, weak, and slow on defense.
Rex Ryan’s scheme is predicated on the linebackers and safeties keying the different pressure and coverage packages. Calvin Pace is decent at outside linebacker, but Bart Scott (likely to be cut), David Harris, and Bryan Thomas aren’t good enough. Put it this way: If you’re looking at Aaron Maybin as a savior, your personnel is in trouble.
Don’t even get us started on safety. Jim Leonhard, who is as smart and effective as it comes when he’s in the lineup, is too small (5 feet 8 inches, 188 pounds) at a collision position to be counted on, and he hasn’t been able to finish the past two seasons. Eric Smith is a disaster. Brodney Pool is decent, but not a building block.
Basically, the guts of the defense need to be revamped if Ryan is going to field his type of team. The problem is they have a ton of free agents, mostly on the defensive side, including Pouha, Leonhard, Maybin, Pool, linebacker Jamaal Westerman, and Thomas. At least the Jets finally have a full complement of draft picks for the first time under Ryan.
Fired Dolphins coach Tony Sparano replaces Schottenheimer as offensive coordinator. With this move, the Jets basically admitted they babied Sanchez too much. Sparano, a New Haven native, is hard-nosed and will get in Sanchez’s face if he starts to mope around again. We’ll have to see how Sanchez reacts to that. Southern Cal wasn’t exactly a place where you learn to deal with adversity.
Schottenheimer had his issues - 67 dropbacks against the Giants? hello? - but he was severely limited by Sanchez and poor execution by his players.
