June 20th, 2008. Supposedly the longest day of the calendar year 2008. I disagree. For me, and every other football fan, the longest day of the year is September 6. The day before the Kickoff Sunday in the NFL. The one day where 24 hours feels like an eternity. But fear not, because following the longest day of the year is a glorious one. For you see, the day after, our Miami Dolphins get the opportunity to crush the lowly Jets on opening day. So how will they do it? What needs to happen to defeat this division rival who has won four straight against us and 16 of the past 20? A team that has jettisoned their former starting quarterback for a future Hall of Fame gunslinger. I will tell you how. I present you, my fellow fin fans and Jersey Jet trolls: The Game Plan (cue awesome self righteous music) Step 1: Put the Biscuit in the Basket That former starting QB of the JESTS I was talking about? That happens to be Chad Pennington. Perhaps you have heard of him. If you haven’t, you really shouldn’t be reading this article and, in fact, shouldn’t be allowed on this site. I will wait as you kindly exit. (waits patiently) Okay then, for the rest of us who know who Pennington is, we also know that he is our very own starter now. He impressed in preseason and the majority of his drives ended in points… Three points. While three points is better than none, seven points is preferred. Miami struggled during the preseason in putting the ball into the end zone while in the red zone. That simply won’t cut it come Sunday. At one point during a game a few weeks back, I am pretty sure we ran the ball 57 straight times from the one yard line and were pushed back. It will be up to Chad and his leadership of this young offense to get these guys into the end zone one way or the other. Field goals are good, but Touchdowns are awesome. And quite frankly, I think we would all rather see more of these, than these. Step 2: Ground the Jets Make all the broken hip and redneck jokes you want ( I encourage the belittling of others), but please don’t take Brett Favre for granted. Despite the fact that recent carbon dating has placed his date of birth somewhere around the Jurassic period. The man still has a cannon for an arm and a will to win. Combine that with good receivers (not great like some Jet fans would have you believe, but good nonetheless), and a Miami secondary that has yet to be tested and is thinner than an Olsen twin depth wise, and you have yourself a recipe for fail if Brett takes to the air. Jesse Chatman (aka fumbling fatman, aka sucky running back) went and did his best Barry Bonds impression and got himself suspended leaving the Jets with two average running backs in which to compete with. Luckily for us, we have big fat Jason Ferguson and a couple of other wide bodies in the middle of our line that eat average running backs for lunch (seriously has anyone seen Lex Hilliard since he was “cut”? He was rooming with Ferguson…hmmmm). If Miami can force the Jets to slow down their air attack and thus, slow down the game, it will work to our advantage with the heat and lack of depth at running back for New Jersey’s second favorite football team. Which brings me to… Step 3: Its not the heat, it’s the humidity September home game are our friend. At least, they used to be. There is no reason why they can’t be again on Sunday. The Jets come into town having not been acclimated to the heat and probably will experience swamp *** and batwings within five minutes of leaving the plane. So how do we exploit this? Clearly wearing down the d-line with a running game is key. Unlike our rivals from up north, we have very good depth at running back and some absolute beast on the o-line. But beyond that, we need to make sure we stretch the field offensively across both plains. Vertically AND horizontally. Get to the corners on run plays, get to the sidelines on pass plays. This does two things, it forces the Jets to run all over the field like a chicken with its head cut off and mentally, it shows the Jets players that they can’t tackle our guys. Any play that ends with the ball handler standing upright is a positive one for us on Sunday. Step 4: Keep on keeping’ on Probably the most impressive stats from preseason were the zeros that the first team offense put up in the sacks allowed and turnover categories. “Noodlearm” played within himself (unlike those Jet fans who play WITH themse…nah too easy). He took what the defense was giving him and made smart decisions with the ball. If the only guy open was three yards away, he took the three yards. If everyone was covered, he simply tucked the ball and ran with it. It is that kind of decision making that helps prevent turnovers. Perhaps if someone had faxed us that memo eight years ago, we wouldn’t have this ugly graphic to stare at: So there you have it folks. The Game Plan to winning. What did we learn? Well, basically nothing. All I really did was put lipstick on the proverbial pig by stating that we need to score points, prevent the other team from doing so, be in good shape and not turn the ball over. But we had fun reading and looking at the pictures, no?
Very well done Sam. Bet you had to look long and hard for that Dan Carpenter pick Should be a great game..and of course I just have one thing to add: How does the chant go? B O T E BOTES BOTES BOTES
im looking for a current pic of him. very hard to find. Im hoping theres a good pick of the opening kickoff, assuming we are kicking away. I wanted to draft Carpenter in one of my fantasy leagues, but he wasnt even on the list. I emailed the site, and they didnt even reply. Probably figured I made him up.
I'm thinking something like this... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBwgppQS5io&feature=related]YouTube - Carmina Burana / O Fortuna / Letra original / Traduccion...[/ame]
What a great read. Always like humor with my sports. Although the Phins have been nothing but the laughing stock of the NFL recently. I think things will change very soon.
Sadly...I am not that clever. Strictly coincidence...oh wait, I am not supposed to say that. I mean yeah, totally came into mind when selecting the song.
This is a way better song for our week 1 matchup. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyCigHHwOcE]YouTube - Star Wars - Duel Of The Fates[/ame]