So I'm poking around the Jets forums, A) Laughing at them, and B) Seeing how they justify their loss, and a common trend I see brought up is that the game was close, and that they'll get it next time with the difference a home field advantage/revenge makes. Thinking about it, yeah, those two things combined COULD make up for the 4 point win we got, but I knew there were a ton of stupid mistake penalties we received, as well as a few other things. Penalties Jets: 6-56 Dolphins: 8-112 We all know a large chunk of that was the BS PI call, but that still leaves a large chunk of penalty yardage we effectively gave up, at home. Hopefully they can address that so it doesn't get that much worse on the road. Punt Returns Cam Wake picked up that Killer Instinct later in the game and almost picked up a punt block after the Jets made us look pathetic with those two fake punts. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. That cannot (and I wholheartedly believe it will not) happen again. Rushing Yards We let them pick up 138 Rushing yards, just 13 yards shy of what we had. They also had 4.6 yards per rush. If I recall we were only allowing around 60 yards on average coming into the game, which they effectively doubled. I look forward to seeing our rush defense clamp down a bit harder on the next outing. Bottom line, this game was close because we let them save two scoring drives with Punt Returns, and handed them a TD off a penalty. We gave up 2 touchdowns, and one FG to Penalties, and 4th down conversions. Sparano is a numbers guy, and I'm sure the next two weeks the players are going to be reminded of that over and over again. I don't think these guys are going to let that happen again. The game will be a good close game again if the Jets ratchet up their Defense. If they don't, and we don't make stupid mistakes like the ones outlined above, it will be a blowout like what happened to the Bills. (And I know, one week at a time... but I'm excited to see them prove that we're the better team without a doubt).
Jets having 138 yds rushing is unacceptable, rewatching the game and it was clear that they had targeted Joey Porter and Jason Taylor, they simply ran right at them and got positive yardage. I know Matt Roth is supposedly on the outs in Miami, but we really could use him and his run stopping ability.
Padre ... that's the best way to neutralize JT, run at him ... just like they did when he was a DE ... which again is why i call for Roth IF and only IF he is healthy and ready to play -- which i do believe we will see against NO. even though he is raw, its also why i called for Wake to play more ... i think he can become more stout against the run ... i respect them, but am not big fans of having JT and JP on the field at the same time ... still can't believe we settled for Plan B (JT) instead of the draft this year ...
As far as home field adv. goes, they need to look at my thread in the NFL forum about the home field adv. this season
