Bob Wischusen has been the radio play-by-play voice of the New York Jets for 19 years. Lasting all season, Wischusen will share thoughts about the Green & White in a weekly column.
Ways the Offense Can Score
Adam Gase immediately pointed to missed red zone opportunities when talking about the loss to the 49ers, saying they have to move down the field and then finish drives by scoring seven. While that is 100 percent true, the one area I would adjust if I was making the decisions would be to make a concerted effort to get the tight ends involved in the passing attack. When the Jets began this season, they envisioned Le'Veon Bell a tailback, Breshad Perriman and Denzel Mims at outside receivers, and Jamison Crowder in the slot. Once Perriman left the 49ers game with an ankle injury, all four of those players were no longer on the field. The only two mainstays of the offense that the Jets imagined beginning the season with and were on the field were Chris Herndon and Ryan Griffin. And yet, those two players were still largely invisible in the passing game. I can't see any way that the Jets aren't going to take more advantage of scoring opportunities, at least dealing with the injuries they're dealing with now, without getting Griffin and Herndon more targets and more opportunities in the passing game. To me that would be the highest priority if I were Adam Gase.
Defense Needs to Find Consistency
Gregg Williams as a defensive coordinator can only do so much. He can't be the vocal leader all of the time, he needs his veteran players to make sure that everyone understands the standard that's set on an NFL defense, and what has to happen. He can't go out on the field and make tackles for his players; all he can do is draw up a scheme that puts them in position to go make a play. He has every right to expect that his players will make a play when given a chance to bring down a running back on the first play of the game and not allow an untouched 80-yard touchdown. Gregg Williams did a magnificent job last season overcoming injuries and finding a way to craft a defense that way competitive every week. But that competitive fire has to be reinstituted by the leaders of this current defense so that it looks a lot more like the defense we saw last season.
Complementary Football in All Three Phases
When Adam Gase brings up complementary football, it's simply another way of saying that a team needs to be a complete team in all three phases in order to have a chance to win in the NFL. Against the Buffalo Bills, the Jets had a bad day in kick coverage, but look at the first play of the game against San Francisco when the kickoff group does a good job of pinning them inside their own 20-yard line. And then what happens by the defense? Rather than making that early field position advantage stand up, they give up an 80-yard touchdown run to begin the game. Think about the Pierre Desir interception; for the one time in the game that gave the Jets a short field to work with, the offense was unable to get the ball in the endzone and settle for what turned out to be three insignificant points. In order to win in the NFL, each phase of a team must complement each other. Through the first two weeks of the season, each phase of this team has at some point in a game made a play or had a sequence that could have changed momentum, only to have the next unit come on the field and not take advantage of the opportunity that the other unit gave them. That has to change for the Jets to have a chance to win games.
