Jets play calling in last 3 minutes

[urysohn]

Let me start by saying that as a loyal New England Patriots fan, I have very few good things to say about the Jets.
But if three minutes of game time can get somebody fired, it would be the last three minutes of the Jets-Oakland game. Either Herman Edwards or Paul Hackett should be out on their ass after completely mismanaging the last three minutes during their loss to the Raiders. Down by 2 touchdowns, the Jets looked as though they were trying to kill clock. Taking their time after a play, going with a full huddle, deciding not to run a play with 15 seconds left before the 2 minute warning. All in all, it took them over 4 minutes to go 75 yards.

So, less than 2 minutes left, you just scored to pull within seven. You have 2 timeouts left, so you can stop the clock but a single first down by the opponent will pretty much end the game. Either way, there will be less than a minute on the clock if you manage to get the ball back. And so everybody watching the game knows the onside kick is coming. Everybody. Except for the Jets coaching staff apparently. Sure, after the kickoff, Garner manages to score again for Oakland, but by that time the Jets had already conceded the game.

Am I way off base here? I'm sure Herman Edwards knows a lot more about football than I do, but I can't figure this one out for the life of me.

[Ducky]

I agree that their clock management sucked & I also thought that the on-side was coming. The weird thing is that kicking it deep would have worked if Garner not gotten a first down(or touchdown in this case) on 3rd down. More importantly, Garner wouldn't have gotten outside if not for a big-time hold by Tim Brown. The Jets should have gone for the onside kick, but they did get screwed by the blown call.

[Han Solo]

I disagree with the offensive playcalling. I thought they were being extremely casual with the clock on that drive that led to the score. Blame that on Paul Hackett. I think that's the second week in a row that Hackett was very wasteful with the clock on an important drive.

However, while it surprised me a bit, I don't disagree with the call to kick it deep instead of onside. Onside kicks rarely work when the other team is expecting it. It's a gamble to trust your defense to come up with the stop, but, then again, the onside kick may be an even bigger gamble. And they did have them at 3rd and 11 before Garner broke loose.

[jets fan]

Guys, what lost them the game was their inept defense all night long - it wasn't what happened in the last few minutes. The Raiders gained over 200 yards rushing and Jerry Rice alone had 183 yards receiving (as a team the Raiders had over 500 yards total offense). The Jets could not stop the run or cover any receiver all night long. Tim Brown's TD made me sick - they were on about the 5 yard line and nobody was within 10 yards of him in the corner of the end zone. Please! The offense did its part with 3 TDs. Special teams left a lot to be desired with a blocked FG and a missed FG - but the return game seemed OK.

You can debate the onsides kick or lack thereof, as Ducky points out the Jets would have had the ball back without that hold. As Herman Edwards said "people think for some reason that when you do an onsides kick, you'll get the ball back." Whether they kicked it or not, the game was lost long before that.

[Han Solo]

I agree that their (lack of) defense all night long cost them the game, but I do think the offense could have moved with a little more urgency on that last drive. Bad playcalling.

The biggest problem with the defense was that your best defensive player was sitting on the sidelines. That, and nobody could seem to stop Rice.

[jared]

The onsides kick would have been the correct play because the Jets had trouble stopping the Raiders all night. If they were down 7-0 instead of 31-24, then kicking it deep would have been a reasonable strategy.

[Abducens]

Why am i hungry for Subway now.

[urysohn]

Even if they had managed to stop the Raiders, they would optimistically have been looking at getting the ball back on their own 30 with about a minute left.
Even with a 25% recovery rate for onsides kicks when the opponent knows they're coming, I'd think you'd still be better off with the onside kick given the circumstances.

[Bob the Dog]

Bob thinks the bad play calling goes beyond the last 3 minutes. It looks like the coaching staff (with good reason) has very little confidence in Vinny throwing the ball down field. The Raiders defense had less to do with stopping the JEST in the first half than did the play calling. In a move that should surprise no one, Pennington will be their starter from Day 1 next year.

[Ducky]

My biggest question is why couldn't Rice have had those numbers when I lost in the FF playoffs?

Combine those with what Tai Streets did & I'd have been facing moj in the finals. :sad:

[Pseudolus]

[Jerry Rice tan]
Does anyone else read Tuesday Morning Quarterback (http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060707)? I'm not much of a football fan, but I find myself watching games just so I'll get the references in the column. For instance:In still other NFL news, Jerry Rice has nine catches for 183 in the playoffs. Wow, they must be celebrating in San Francisco! Say what? Are you seriously trying to tell me the Forty-Niners cut Jerry Rice? Are you seriously trying to tell me that Jerry Rice is advancing in the playoffs, but the Forty-Niners are not?
[Jerry Rice tan<SUP>-1</SUP>]

[Anonymous]

Good link. Also had the following on Parcells:

"In other NFL news, City of Tampa may soon have the Super Bowl-winning Bill Parcells as coach, but fans should bear in mind what they are getting—a gentleman who cares only, solely, and exclusively about Bill Parcells.

Parcells first practiced the art of stabbing his own team, owner, and fans in the back by suddenly resigning from the Giants in late spring 1991, long after all available top coaches already signed elsewhere. Desperate for a body, the Giants had to hire the regrettable Ray Handley. Parcells, who had just won the Super Bowl, seemed to time his resignation to ensure that the Giants went south—as they did, with two losing seasons—since this would make it seem he was an inimitable genius.

Officially Parcells quit the Giants because of heart problems, but two years later he was miraculously healed and hired with a hefty raise to coach the Patriots. As his Patriots were preparing for the 1997 Super Bowl, Parcells openly urged the sports media to cover his unhappiness with New England owner Robert Kraft and his desire to jump to the Jets. The Patriots were distracted by the sideshow and lost; Parcells instantly switched allegiances, winning a huge raise. Thus Parcells screwed his team, employer, and his city's fans for personal gain—and to keep the media spotlight on himself, not his team, during Super Bowl week. Any player who did the same would have been denounced. Somehow, Parcells got away with it. (Then, of course, later quit the Jets, too.)

Flash forward to last week, the Bucs and Tony Dungy preparing for a playoff game. Parcells was negotiating for Dungy's job while issuing tepid non-denial denials calculated to keep the attention on him. The distraction screwed the Bucs, their fans, and Dungy: Parcells knew perfectly well that what he was doing would increase the chance of Tampa losing and Dungy getting canned. Thus his opening move in City of Tampa is to help cause a humiliating defeat while stabbing a good man in the back. But it all benefits Parcells, and that is the sole, exclusive, and only thing on this gentleman's mind. Hark unto these words, fans of Tampa, and do not lament to the football gods if Parcells turns against you as well. "

[Kid Rock]

On the fan yesterday, they did a play by play of the last TD for the Jets. They had the ball at the 25 with 5:06 left. They ran 7-8 plays, used a TO and had the 2 minute warning before scoring with 1:56 left. After the play on 4th and 2, they used 43 seconds before running the next play. No plays went out of bounds.

When asked about changing offensive coordinators, Edwards said that TB had used 3 over the past 3 years. A reporter should have mentioned that the inability to be more effective offensively, especially at critical times, was the reason Dungy will be fired.

[Dr T Non-Fan]

I think Hackett did the same thing at USC: wasting time on a drive for one touchdown when he needed two. Can't remember which ultra-critical game (UCLA or ND) he did this in, but it's probably the main reason he's not there anymore.

[jets fan]

Guys, everything has 2 sides to it. You can look at the negatives or the positives. Is the glass half full or is it half empty? The other side of this that you're not mentioning is that the Jets won against the Colts and the Bengals in the last few seconds with good clock management. As far as the play against the Bills where Vinny dumped it over the middle and ran out of time, even if he threw it away instead, they would have been at about the 30 yard line with about 2 seconds to go needing a TD - not promising odds. As was the case with the Raiders game last week, they lost the game with consistently bad play all game long, not in the last few seconds.

As far as this whole thing with Parcells, I take a much different view. Yes, the story is that he left the Giants because of a heart condition, but 2 years away is a significant amount of time to recover - it's not like it happened overnight. As far as the New England situation, if Bob Kraft hadn't gone over Parcell's head in the first place, like an idiot, to draft Terry Glenn (who is now the biggest distraction on their team), Parcells never would have left in the first place. It was a meddling, arrogant owner with a couple years in the NFL that thought he knew more than Parcells, which made him leave. Now for the Jets! We were 1-15 the season before he came, and we were 9-7 the next year. We haven't had a losing season since before he arrived. How could I have bad things to say about a guy like that? Whoever wrote that article only sees what he wants to see.

[urysohn]

I'm with jets fan on the Parcells bit. The Pats were a fairly pathetic group when he brought them to the Super Bowl. And if he likes the spotlight a bit much, at least the team knows who's boss when he's around. The QB may be team's captain on the field, but with Parcells there is no doubt who the general is. And as bad a pick as Terry Glenn is looking like, he sure as hell played at his peak for Parcells.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like that he jumped ship for f*%king Jets (but then again I seem to recall they were just the Jets, not the f*%king Jets, before he went there). But in the long run, what everybody in New England will remember is that he took us to the Super Bowl. And I doubt the Giants are complaining about their 2 titles, or the Jets about their AFC title appearance.

[Patience]

I also agree with the prior on Parcells. The Giants & Jets fans hold no grudges. As for the Pats & Bucs I would be much quicker to point a finger at their ownership for much of the speculation & media leaks.

The play calling that bothered me most were the three calls before the TD. They were inside the 10, but still didn't throw one into the end zone. The long kick didn't bother me.