Revis and other collected thoughts

Why are teams still throwing at Revis?  As David_Wyatt pointed out his 39% completion rating for receiver targets is about 10 points better than the next corner, he leads the league in passes defensed with 27 (second place is 19), and he has 6 interceptions.

I have two answer, but am open to input.  1) Unlike most corners who cover a side of the field and pick up that receiver, or who play a zone, Revis covers the top receiver.  No matter how good a corner is, a QB will always target their top receiver.  Partly because QBs are trained to believe that in a one on one their top receiver can usually beat a corner and partly because more plays are called for top receivers.  2) Revis' coverage style seems somewhat unique.  He tends to play the ball a lot more than other corners I watch who generally track receivers.  When making a quick decision a QB may think his receiver has a step because Revis has the inside position and is giving a little space, but he closes faster and more effectively than anyone else.  He often simply beats receivers to the ball.  I have never seen a cornerback like him in my life.  It's tempting to play the "how good will he be when..." game, I don't know, I played that game with Jose Reyes, he seems to have topped out.  I'm just enjoying watching someone of his extraordinary talent and work ethic.  If he stays at this level for a while, I will be ecstatic.

Why I like Rex Ryan.  I'm tired of players and coaches always getting up and talking about being the underdog and the adversity they've overcome.  It seems everyone is trying to set the bar low and outperform or maybe just cover their ass when they lose.  Rex said early on that this is an elite team.  He may not be right as of yet, but its nice to see someone unabashed about their desire to win.  He is not trying to not lose his job, he's trying to win games.  Many people have commented on how his brashness has rubbed off on the team, but I'm more interested in how his willingness to take responsibility has rubbed off.  Players on this team own up to mistakes, he owns up to mistakes.  He believes they can win every game.  They won't win every game, but they can win each game.  I respect his boldness.  He is the type of person you follow.

 

Sanchez.  As Jets fans we've had a surprising number of good quarterbacks over the years, more than our share of let downs, and only one truly great one.  It's too early to know what will happen with Sanchez, but I'm a big fan of his.  I tempered my excitement the first 3 weeks because each game I saw a pass or two that could have been intercepted.  In the disastrous Buffalo, New Orleans, and New England games I tried to temper my concerns because many of those interceptions weren't terrible throws including a few tips.  He has some things to work out as is to be expected of a rookie, but of his 12 games he has had 8 good ones, 1 mediocre, and 3 awful (I'm using the simplistic measurement of passer rating as a guide).  I don't know what else to expect.  He is one of the 5 lowest rated passers in the league, along with the other 2 rookies and JaMarcus Russell and Jake Delhomme, but I think next year he'll be in the middle of the pack.  The year after we'll see what we really have.

 

Shonn Greene - he'll figure out the fumbles.  when he does, I am really excited about him.  He is much faster than I expected.  He can run the old Curtis Martin toss play, which we haven't had since his departure.  We haven't seen the spin moves and such yet, which is good.  Focus on holding the ball, once you've got that, then we can get fancy.  I don't understand how so many teams passed on him, there are a lot of teams that need running backs.

 

Same old Jets - The symptoms of not winning for 40 years are that you expect not to win.  I saw this with a Red Sox fan friend of mine.  He was convinced they would blow every lead until they finally won in 2004.  Now he doesn't think that, but he also doesn't have the passion for the team he once had.  He sits back and watches games, he used to pound on the table, clap obnoxiously when they did win something, and obsess.  It is somewhat circular though - teams who haven't won focus on how they could have won.  On what went wrong.  On what could have been.  Teams who have won recently don't need to bother.  Sometimes it is a matter of how the ball bounces or whether the Tuck rule is invented just for you, but really all the angst and failure washes away the second you win.  The Patriots and Red Sox were big losers for years, now people think of them as elite franchises.  Winning is contagious, but its more than that.  We think of history as inevitable and indicative of the future.  It is neither.  The day the Jets win the Superbowl (g-d willing soon) 'same old Jets' will be dead.  Not because some magical curse is lifted, but because the whole problem is a lack of winning, once that's gone, it's gone.  At least for a while.

 

Draft picks - I have a thesis with almost no research behind it.  GMs vastly overrate their own ability to draft.  That's why the Jets could get Kris Jenkins an all world NT for a few picks.  Its why they got Sheppard and Edwards for conditional mid-level picks, but also why they got painfully little for Vilma.  Basically, I think Tannenbaum has figured this out and knows every GM thinks they are going to pick the next Tom Brady with a 6th round pick, rather than realizing they are just as likely to pick the next JaMarcus Russell or Dwayne Robertson or Vernon Ghoslton with a top 5 pick.  If you can get a pro-bowler for draft picks do it.  Because you have to pay some of these early picks like pro-bowlers and so few of them actually become them.  Tannenbaum is called 'aggressive' by colleagues for trading picks so frequently, but I think he has simply uncovered an inefficiency in the market along the lines of Billy Beene and statistical baseball scouting.  Has anyone seen any research on this?  Anyone think I'm an idiot?

 

Those are the thoughts I've been sitting on for a while, what say you GGN?