Moar NFL Pleez

The Jets and Their Embarrassing Head Coach

"I don't expect much from Rex Ryan's tenure in New York. Why? First, his dad was a crap head coach, and those Ryan boys effing worship their dad. Secondly, he's far too much of a player's coach. Third, he's all ga-ga over the media attention that comes from being a head coach, and I hate that crap. Fourth, some guys just don't have it as game-managers, and Ryan strikes me as one of those guys. Some of the most important stuff a head-coach does takes place in those time-sensitive down-and-distance moments in critical points in close games, and those are moments when your head has to be into the situation. I believe Ryan is a smart enough guy. The problem? The vast, overwhelming majority of those make-or-break moments happen when your offense is on the field, and I flat do not believe Ryan is a cerebral enough guy to be sharp on his offense in those moments."

I, Nostradamus Jr., wrote that in my NFL Preview way back when. History will remember that as one of the all-time greatest paragraphs, and here's why: in the past few weeks, I think everyone is starting to realize what an incredibly dismal head coach Rex Ryan is.

His clock and game management has already been sketchy this season, in close losses to Jacksonville, Buffalo, and twice to Miami. He's not a game manager. He's just not. In games decided by less than 6 points, the Jets are 0-4, and in each of those losses, time-outs, playcalling, and game-management played a role in undermining any chance the Jets may have had down the stretch. Twice in that stretch, against Buffalo and Jacksonville, his team had burned all three time-outs before their final possession of the game. In the second loss to Miami, he stubbornly refused to use his time-outs before his team's final possession, which, incidentally, started with less than a minute on the clock. He's a buffoon.

Last week, Ryan made the embarrassing, inexplicable, lame-brained, and ultimately useless decision to have Joe Girardi come teach his quarterback how to slide. First of all, if Ryan had his rookie quarterback spend anything more than 15 seconds working with the manager of the Yankees on a baseball move during a game week, he should be fired today. Second of all, you don't need a baseball player or coach or even a fan to teach a guy how to slide. Does Kellen Clemens know how to slide in a football game? Yes? Okay, there's your teacher. Getting Girardi to do it is a publicity stunt, a bald-faced, embarrassingly pathetic attention grab by a guy who's now developed a reputation for grabbing attention at every possible opportunity.

Now, is it important that Mark Sanchez get comfortable with the idea of sliding in certain situations? Probably. Quarterbacks, for the most part, are around to pass the ball down the field. Occasionally, a reasonably athletic quarterback may take an opportunity to gain some yards with his legs. The great Joe Montana made famous his belief that any time a quarterback can pick up yardage, particularly a first down, and get to the sideline, he should take off and run for the sideline, without thinking twice. I like that idea; it makes the quarterback dangerous and it adds another dimension to your offense, while protecting your quarterback's health. Especially athletic quarterbacks may take it a step further by running up field and picking up tough yards in traffic. I'm not sure Mark Sanchez is especially athletic, but he's young, anyway, and certainly fits into the middle group (he's a reasonably athletic guy who can pick up the occasional first down with his legs). Because he's not Vince Young or Michael Vick or even Alex Smith, he should probably get comfortable with the idea of protecting his health to the extent possible. In short, yes, he should know how to slide.

On Sunday, in a division contest, on the road, with their season still there for the salvaging, Mark Sanchez took off on third down and headed for first down yardage. He got close, guys closed in on him, he ducked low and lunged forward for the last yard, absorbed moderate contact while successfully converting the first down, and was hurt. For some absurd reason, Rex Ryan stood before the national media and said that was a bad idea.

Frankly, I don't know what to make of a head coach who says a player on the field in position to pick up a key first down in a key game should think of his health before and above the team's goal of keeping the ball. It's not like Sanchez was out there shucking and jiving, going over the top of a pile or busting a spin move. The guy lowered his head, ducked his shoulder, tucked the ball, and more or less dove straight for the ground. That's about as routine a play as there is in football. Any quarterback worth a damn makes that play 100 times out of 100. Can you imagine how you'd feel about a rookie quarterback in that situation sliding to a stop a yard short of a first down, and then explaining it off as him just preserving his health? I would almost immediately write that player off as a potential NFL franchise quarterback.

So let's take a bigger look at Rex Ryan's tenure as a head coach, short though it may yet be. He's a ham; his team loses close games; he doesn't know how to manage the clock; he spends practice week time grabbing publicity instead of working on the game-plan; he boo-hoos the referees and opposing coaches when he loses; he wants his rookie quarterback to think of his health before making a routine (albeit heroic) play to keep a drive alive; and he's willing to criticize him for it to the media.

I'm sticking to my guns here; Rex Ryan is not at all cut out to be a head coach. This is all part of a bigger picture. He does not understand game situations well enough to make intelligent decisions about managing a game. Burning time-outs in a close game is an example. Holding onto time-outs when your defense is on the field so your offense can use them on the final drive but failing to realize that your offense may not have enough time left on the clock to make use of the time-outs is another obvious one. Coaching your young quarterback to think of his health before making a gutsy-but-routine play to keep a drive alive in a division contest is perhaps less obvious, but it's the same problem. Countless quarterbacks have learned over and over again that making that exact play, when it presents itself, can make a huge difference in a game, in a season, and in the locker room. Mark Sanchez maybe wasn't thinking about this when he made that play, but there's some crude math going on in his teammates head at the end of that play no matter how he plays it. If he dives in there and picks up the first, his teammates decide they can trust him a little bit more and they respect his toughness. Most teammates will respond to that kind of play. If he slides short and they punt the ball, more than a few of them are going to look around, see the first down marker, see that he's a yard short and that he utterly gave up on that yard without a fight, and think of him as a chicken shit (if only for a moment). Any receiver or running back is going to think about what would happen to them if they slid to the ground a yard short of a first down. It's human nature.

Mark Sanchez absolutely made the right play. Is he made of glass? Possibly. But it was the right play, 100 times out of 100, and I'm 100% confident that a head coach who doesn't understand that is a moron.

My Absurd Pick of the Redskins over the Saints

No, I'm not backing off of this pick. Will the Redskins upset the Saints on Sunday? Probably not. I don't expect it to happen. I picked the Redskins because I think this game is going to be closer than maybe some people think it will be. I could have picked the Saints by 8 and called it gutsy, but it's still an 8 point loss and, really, does anybody pay attention to the margin of victory in a picks post? No (not that anybody is paying attention to this blog, and I mean AT ALL, but friggin' humor me, okay?).

The only way to pick the Redskins to do well in this game is to pick them to win. That way, I'm not in the miserable, shameful position of patting myself on the back if I pick the Redskins to lose by 3 and they lose by 4. "Hey, I'm fucking awesome, I told you it'd be close".

No. Screw that. If I'm going to pick the Redskins to do well at home against a juggernaut coming off a big emotional win and a short week of practice, I have to pick them to win. Because if I told you at the start of the season that the Saints were going to win their first 11 games and ultimately lose only once, you'd think the short week after the Patriots game, outdoors, in December, against an NFC East team with a noisy home crowd and Albert Haynesworth pressuring the pocket would be as good a time as any. And it is. Bizarre as it may sound, the 3-8 Redskins, losers of 6 of their last 7 games, are playing as well as they have all season and, record aside, look like a legitimate professional football team. They played damn well at Dallas and at Philadelphia in their last two games, and smacked the 6-2 Broncos in their last home game. There are any number of guys playing right now on the Redskins who honestly don't give a shit and a half about a 3-8 record; they're playing for reputation, or for a job, or because it's the first time they've been given a legitimate shot at playing time in their entire career. The Redskins have absolutely nothing to lose in this game.

The Saints, on the other hand, have ascended. They've climbed to the top. They've all but clinched the AFC South. They just delivered a prime-time nationally televised smackdown to the reigning NFL juggernaut. This was a short work week for them. Last season, the Redskins defense did as well as any team has in two seasons at shutting down the Saints' passing game. Statistically, this is the best defense, by far, that the Saints have faced since week 5. Their last 6 opponents have had the 19th (Miami), 27th (Atlanta), 11th (Carolina), 28th (St. Louis), 26th (Tampa Bay), and 12th (Patriots) ranked defenses in the NFL by yardage, and in Carolina's case, you're talking about a defense giving up nearly 24 points a game.

All of this is a long way of saying this; the Redskins could win this game. I think they've got a chance. Of course, the last time I wrote out an explanation of a pick like this, the Redskins lost to the Patriots, at home, by 45 points.

The Vikings are Frauds

The Vikings needed a hail-mary to beat the 49ers by 3. They beat the Ravens in Minnesota by 2. They beat the Packers twice by a combined 19 points. They were thumped by the Steelers.

The rest of their schedule?

Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Detroit (again), Seattle, Chicago. They've won against those teams by a combined 1,000,000 point margin. In the next month, they go to Arizona, host Cincinnati, then have two more cupcakes (at Carolina and at Chicago), then finish up at home versus the Giants. We'll learn quite a bit about the Vikings over the next 5 weeks.

I, for one, expect slippage.

That's it!

Go Skynards!