You are the most knowledgeable Pats fan about everything Jets related I've ever read. I never thought about looking at it like you state
"finally!!!!! The Jets are a worthy opponent!!!! Even better!!!! They'll get Asomougha and SHUT THE PATRIOTS DOWN!!!!! And Rex Ryan will BLITZ the Pats to death now!!! Just like the playoff game!!!!
yeah, except Ryan dropped all available defenders into the middle zones, did NOT blitz, and confused Brady...unlike the 45-3 thrashing where Rex played his standard defense, the one you say cannot be dealt with by BB or the Patriots. I'll give you the point that Ryan is a slippery character. Obviously he caught BB by surprise with the defense he schemed for the playoff game but it was nothing close to resembling Ryan's historical defensive set...the one YOU claim shuts down Brady...oh..except for that "lucky" 45-3 primetime national obliteration.
I am just trying to look at the situation as more of a realist, not a wide-eyed optimist homer like a lot of other fans.
I never once said that the Rex blitzed the Pats into oblivion in the Pats' playoff loss this past year. I agree that Rex actually took a different approach and played more coverage and more zone than he usually does.
However, it is no secret that Rex loves to blitz more than anyone in the league. If he has two CB's that can play on islands, his blitzes will be that much more effective. It will give Brady and the Pats OL even more trouble. You can keep saying Hernandez will just burn them, but if they had Nnamdi, I'm pretty sure they'd consider using Nnamdi on Hernandez if Hernandez was indeed chewing them. He has the size, speed, and physicality to stay with Hernandez and defend him well.
If an Asmougha-Revis CB tandem doesn't put fear in your eyes as a Patriots fan, you have to be looking at the situation with a slanted view. Those are the two best CB's in the game today with the best DC in the game today. That team/defense has given Brady more trouble than anyone else over the past 2 years. They have beaten us 3 out of 5 times, including on our home turf in the playoffs.
If you don't want to admit that Rex has given Brady more trouble than any other guy in the league, then you're just not facing the facts. Brady has typically not played well vs Rex's defense (2007 vs Baltimore, 2009 @ NYJ, 2010 @ NYJ, 2011 vs NYJ in playoffs). He had one great game (45-3 game) and one decent game (2009 vs NYJ at home in a 31-14 win) where he had a good first half but struggled to move the ball after the Jets made some halftime adjustments. Has **** LeBeau or anyone else ever made Tom Brady look that perplexed, confused, and scared of getting hit at times? No.
I hate the Jets as much as you do, and I hope we thrash them 50-0 next year every time we play them. I hate Rex Ryan with a passion. But I respect how viable of a threat they have become, I respect the way they aggressively build their team, I respect that they have gone further in the playoffs than us the last two years, and I respect Rex Ryan's defensive intellect. I'm not going to try to convince myself that the Jets aren't a legitimate threat and the team that has given us more trouble than anyone else in the past two years. It's simply factual, and although we all hate to admit that the Jets are no longer the JEST or a laughing stock, they are a well-run championship driven organization with young QB who is balls in the playoffs (like Brady used to be) and a defensive whiz as a coach (what people used to call BB).
Yeah, Im sure belichick has been spending all his time on the Vineyard and has no plan, why cant we be like the jets, those perennial super bowl winners, oh, nevermind
These are the comments I hate. So because the Pats won 3 Super Bowls in 4 years about 7-8 years ago, everything is just fine and dandy? Stop living in the past, take off your homer hat.
The facts are that the Jets have GOTTEN THE BETTER OF US SINCE REX TOOK OVER. We are 2-3 against them in the last two years. We lost the only game that really mattered big time at home in the playoffs coming off a wild card weekend bye. Brady has had some of his worst games of the season vs Rex (Week 2 in 2009, Week 2 in 2010, playoffs in 2011). The Jets have made the AFCCG two years in a row and have gone further in the playoffs than we have the last two years. The last time we made any serious noise in the playoffs was during the 2007 season.
And what exactly has Belichick's plan been with the pass rush? He's had, oh let's say about 3 years of a subpar pass rush and subpar pass defense and still has done NOTHING to adequately address the need for a DE and OLB. We've seen scrap heap garbage like Burgess, TBC, and Gerard Warren thrown onto the field in hope of something miraculous. They have drafted all of one OLB in the top 2 rounds during Belichick's tenure with NE.
So please tell me, what's the plan at RDE and OLB in the base 3-4? What's the plan at DE in sub packages? How is this pass rush even remotely close to improved? Is a platoon of Ninkovich/Cunningham/Moore/Murrell the answer when you had the worst third down D in the league last year and 30th ranked pass defense? I actually like Cunningham but still don't see how this combination could put fear in the eyes of any opponent. Where's Seymour's replacement? Is Stroud really that guy? Where's the front 7 difference makers that Bill was going to draft in 2011, allegedly the "deepest DL/DE class in 10+ years."
The Patriots NEED impact defensive playmakers. They don't want to spend in FA and they don't want to trade up in the draft. It's pretty hard to formulate a plan to fix your problems and address your needs if you're going to keep trading down and out of the 1st round and signing mid to low tier free agents like TBC, G. Warren, Springs, Damione Lewis, etc.
Maybe Miguel or somebody else can help me out here, but in the past didn't a player cut after the final game of the season have any of his dead cap money accelerated into the following year's cap? In other words, going by the rules of any other year then it would not have mattered if the cuts were made February 18, February 27, March 1 or March 10; the dead cap money would have been added to the following year (in this case, 2011), correct?
No that is not correct. If a guy is released before the start of a new league year, which starts usually around March 4th-7th when Free Agency beings, then he counts against the cap for the current year. Since the 2010 season was uncapped, the Jets could release who ever they wanted without having to worry about being salary cap compliant.
There was an example of this with Joey Porter when he was on the Dolphins:
ESPN - Dolphins Terminate Porter's Contract
Hours after the Miami Dolphins announced his release, linebacker Joey Porter returned to their roster in the first of many complex salary-cap rules that the league is expected to encounter this offseason.
NFL rules prohibited the Dolphins from releasing Porter at this time when his salary-cap acceleration exceeded the space that the team had, according to an NFL source. Now, after thinking he had his freedom, Porter does not. He is still a Dolphin -- and is likely to remain so until at least next month, when the league's new year starts March 5.
The NFL is expected to go to an uncapped year starting March 5 -- assuming the league and the NFL Players Association cannot extend their collective bargaining agreement before then. But until then, teams must work within the constraints of the salary cap, so Porter's rights reverted back to Miami.
Porter's release would have accelerated Porter's cap hit to $4.8 million, leaving the Dolphins $600,000 above the imposed cap, according to a source.
In summary:
- The Dolphins attempted to terminate Porter's contract after the 2009 season (February 2010) but before the new league year of the 2010 season started (March 2010)
- His dead money would have been accelerated onto the 2009 cap
- 2009 was a capped year
- Cutting Joey Porter would put the Dolphins over the salary cap (AKA they would not be salary cap compliant)
- They had to wait until the 2010 league year started (first week of March usually around the 4th to the 7th) to cut him because they had the space to do it since 2010 was going to be uncapped
That is exactly what the Jets did with their big contracts before the lockout. Cutting all those guys in February would accelerate their dead money onto the 2010 payroll/cap. Since 2010 was uncapped, the Jets did not have to be salary cap compliant, unlike the Dolphins had to be with Porter when there was still a cap. The Jets making all those cuts with all that dead money was perfectly legal and actually very shrewd because there was no salary cap for them to go over. So they took a business as usual approach and assumed the new league year would be starting in early March. They cut all those guys in February, before the new league year for 2011 started, and accelerated all their dead money onto the uncapped 2010 payroll, ridding themselves of dead weight and dead cap space while setting them up with a clean slate to re-sign important guys like Holmes and others.
The reason you have not seen this in the past is because all of the other years were capped years. Teams had to be salary cap compliant, so they could not just cut whoever they wanted and tack it on to the previous year right before the start of a new league year. Instead, they had to wait for the new league year to start, when they had the cap space available to accelerate the dead money. But since 2010 was uncapped, the Jets took advantage of the situation. The Pats should have done the same with guys like TBC and Kaczur.
