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NFL Week 13 |OT| My Favorite Things

Fox318

Member
Post Game Thoughts: Jets 7 Cardinals 6
Once again lets forget the game and just talk about the team. This was a meaningless game and the result was meaningless in the grand scheme of things. After 12 weeks Rex Ryan finally made a switch at the QB position benching Mark Sanchez not In favor of third stringer Greg McElroy. That’s the story not the 7-6 outcome.

The move itself leaves a number of questions about the organization and their management. Sanchez was awful on Sunday but no more awful than just about any other week during the year where Ryan refused to make the switch. The main difference this week is that McElroy was backup rather than Tim Tebow, deactivated because of broken ribs. Somehow Ryan escaped question about how logically it would make sense to dump Mark in this game rather than any other game this year but its pretty clear exactly what is going on here and it doenst shine a bright light for the way the team is run.

I speculated that the Jets were sitting Tebow because of his contract but it does seem pretty clear now that Rex Ryan was in fact honest saying that he felt Sanchez gave them a better chance to win. There is no way that Ryan can defend not putting Tebow in all these weeks and this week being the time to make the change and it just so happened to be a week when Tebow didn’t play. It paints the team in a terrible light because it reinforces the fact that the organization is not run by a general manager but instead by an owner with limited football experience. You don’t win in todays NFL when you have an owner that forces moves on a football team and if there was any mystery about who facilitated the Tebow trade it was answered today.

That being said I would expect a Tebow Wildcat package to now be put into the games on a consistent basis. The cat is out of the bag when it comes to benching Sanchez and now they will have to answer to an owner that would like to see Tebow play a bit. McElroy, despite the ovations, did nothing special on the field. He completed a pass to a beyond wide open Jeff Cumberland for a score and more or less handed the ball off from that point forward. That being said his post game press conference really showed a poised young man that showed far more grace and PR skill than Sanchez ever showed at the same experience level as QB of this team. Those are aspects you cant coach and qualities that endear a QB to both the media and the fanbase.

The fact is the Jets have no quarterback on this team. Sanchez is done. You cant bring him back into Metlife after this. The treatment he got was brutal today. It was warranted but still just awful to sit through. We all lose sight of the fact that these players are human beings and unlike a Bart Scott who acts like an ass most of the time when questioned about his play Sanchez has never done that. It was 3 quarters of booing and venom from a crowd that had enough. The staff doesn’t believe in Tebow and McElroy is a nothing draft pick. Maybe McElroy can prove to be something but the odds are slim. In the grand scheme of things It would have been better for the Jets to make this switch earlier so they could see McElroy play when teams have actual footage of the player to prepare for.

You saw the spark from the team once Rex made the change which is why he needed to do this earlier in the year, whether to Tebow or McElroy. Watch the defense make a stop with Sanchez in the game compared to McElroy in the game. The celebrations were a team that believed vs a team that didn’t believe. It reminded me of when the Colts pulled Peyton Manning in 2009 and every positive play the Jets defense made from there on out was celebrated like they won the Super Bowl. You saw the same from the offense. When Jeremy Kerley brought down a poorly thrown third down pass you would have though the Jets clinched something special. Had the Jets done this earlier they may have won another game or two and be in real playoff contention not in prayer mode. The players wanted this move regardless of who it was to. Rex needed to read that earlier to salvage the season.

Rex of course has the difficult decision as to what to do next. I tend to think he wants to play Mark but there is no way he can put McElroy at the 2 and Tebow at the 3. Similarly I don’t know how he can put McElroy at the 1 and Sanchez at the 3. He is helped by being on the road the next two weeks when it comes to decision making as well as the Tebow injury but the logical move is Sanchez to the 3 and inactive on gameday if Tebow can play. The Jets have to run the table at this point and there is nobody on this team that thinks Sanchez can do that for the team. Who knows maybe the best course of action is to IR Tebow.

From a financial perspective this move more or less officially ends Sanchez’ tenure with the team. He is due $8.25 million in guaranteed money next year and the Jets will actively look to trade him next season. The Jets only objective at this point is to take a cap neutral position on Sanchez which would require a team to take on $4.3 million in salary for a look at Sanchez. Will the Jets find a willing trade partner? I don’t know if they will but they need to start making calls now to see if anyone will bite. Once you make the switch like this at QB its near impossible to go back. The Jets need to just admit their mistake with the Sanchez extension and do their best to move forward without compromising their cap in 2014.

One of the unfortunate sides of this game was Rex waxing poetic about the defense. Lets be real….that QB Arizona throws out there has no business being in the NFL. If their coach didn’t make the brain dead decision to go for it on a 4th down the Jets may have lost 9-7. What went on today was no referendum on the defense. It was just a referendum on the Cardinal QB. He bounced passes left and right and in most cases was nowhere near a receiver. This is the bad side of playing bad teams as it creates a false sense of security and reality about a team. If the Jets played this way against a quality team they would have lost by 20 points. Certainly you don’t give this back but you absolutely can not look at this win as anything more than a win. Its not a referendum on anything.

The best thing to come out of this game is the fact that the Jets finally moved on. It doesn’t matter that it was to a late round draft pick or Tebow. It was just that the coach finally, after weeks of praising the starter, made the move. For the Jets to succeed in the future they needed to move forward not keep looking to the past for answers. This is a team that needs a lot of changes and that is the biggest one you can make. It at least makes me think that the guys in charge, if they are here next year, at least realize that changes need to be made. That is not an opinion I had going into this game. That’s a quantum leap forward for a team that seems to focus far too much on 2010 rather than 2012. I think the organization can finally see hope for turning things around over the next few years provided they don’t read too much into winning games against bad opponents. I think we are all far more optimistic about the prospects for this team than we were at 1 PM today.

Go Jets!

http://nyjetscap.com/2012_Post/jetscardinalspost.html
 

Tom Penny

Member
I don't think the Pats have any real shot at the number 1 seed. Texans are in good shape even if they lose to the Pats. Schedule isn't that tough, but they have to play the Colts twice. Man if they can somehow get the two seed the Pats have a real shot at making it to the super bowl again. I don't think they can make is as a wild card.

They're very unlikely to get the one seed because of choke artists Jax and Det against the Texans. It's impossible for the Pats to get the wildcard since they already won the division but I know what you mean.
 

LJ11

Member
They had cut Bulger. Funny thing about it is had they taken Suh then Bradford would have fallen to #4 . . . to WAS. TB and DET had QBs and those picks were impossible to trade. The Rams tried to give away the pick in the Stafford draft and no one would take it. There's a chart someone that shows that the first pick in the draft was worth less than the last pick in the first round before the system changed

You're referring to "The Losers Curse," a paper written by Richard Thaler and some other guy whose name I'm forgetting, in which they argue that the 1st choice is the least valuable selection in the round, among other things.
 

eznark

Banned
Who was the QB that the Jets had signed in the offseason who then demanded to be traded when they got Tebow? He must feel like a real asshole today.
 
http://nyjetscap.com/2012_Post/jetscardinalspost.html

The last bolding is nonsense. It's the best thing out of the shitty situation but still not a good thing. They're still as misguided and sucky as they were before even after this change so there's no real difference.
 
I completely forgot.

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13 touches.
 

chuckddd

Fear of a GAF Planet
While I'm thinking about it, huge ups to the patchwork offensive line that Pittsburgh rolled out today. Legs at center, Pouncey at guard, and Kelvim Beachem, drafted in the 7th round as a center, at right tackle. Played above their heads today.
 
Has anyone picked up any of the new Nike jerseys this year? I'm wondering how the new replica jerseys (technically the Nike game jersey) are in quality compared to the old Reebok replica jersey.
 

squicken

Member
You're referring to "The Losers Curse," a paper written by Richard Thaler and some other guy whose name I'm forgetting, in which they argue that the 1st choice is the least valuable selection in the round, among other things.

That's it. Just killed STL and DET. Well, there bungling their coaches and GM and player selections killed them, but the high picks made it harder to recover. I have lots of issues with Fisher, but he's 4-0-1 in the division and that's crazy given how bad they can look sometimes. He's not a great coach but he's good and that's an improvement. Really, the difference between a good and great coach is usually a top 5 QB
 

squicken

Member
Harbaugh went in saying congratulations, planning on saying what appeared to be some pleasantries, when Tomlin blew him off. When Harbaugh went to get his words in (he said "Hey! Hey!"), Tomlin turned around, said "good talk," clapped him on the back and walked away.

lulz
 

zychi

Banned
Has anyone picked up any of the new Nike jerseys this year? I'm wondering how the new replica jerseys (technically the Nike game jersey) are in quality compared to the old Reebok replica jersey.

I bought one of the Cutler "limited" jerseys(mid range, not replica, not authentic, but still sewn on items and the stretchy neck part). It looks and feels better than the Reeboks. The Reeboks felt like a poncho to me. Where the Nike feels like I'm wearing a shirt. I've worn it every time the Bears have played, and it feels like it will last a lot longer than my Urlacher worn out Reebok jersey that's only 3 years old.
 
I was being serious! If he had stuck with the Jets and had to play his career would be over. When you aren't good it's best to just coast!
Getting $1.23m for sitting on the bench isn't bad but who knows, he could've played well in a couple of games and Flynned some unsuspecting team.
 
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