Gailey Didn’t Give Bryce A Chance

If you managed to sit through the entire Jets/Rams game, award yourself a long-suffering merit badge. The Jets are bad, the Jets are boring, and in the end, they didn’t help themselves now or in the long-run.

Chan Gailey didn’t allow Bryce to play to his main strength. We keep hearing that the Jets are here to win now, and any coach worth his weight will say that exact same thing. However we’re not here to win now, we’re here to prepare to win tomorrow.

By the Jets playing one of the most conservative offensive games of football I’ve seen in a long time, they didn’t win today and they didn’t get to evaluate what they may have tomorrow.

I wasn’t expecting Petty to come out and thrown 300 yards and 4 touchdowns. Nobody was expecting that. However after showing good accuracy early on a deep throw to Anderson, you could be forgiven for thinking that the Jets were going to test the Rams deep. We have a strong armed QB, the protection was holding up and we have extremely talented receivers. That’s the perfect recipe right? Apparently not.

As SD commented in his post-game breakdown, the Jets continued to run between the tackles and only attempt short to intermediate route throws. Now I don’t mind them simplifying the game and the reads for a QB adjusting to the NFL and making his first career start. However one of my main pet peeves this year rests on the lack of in game adjustments.

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

The Rams noticed the Jets were running a lot on 1st down and then attempting short throws over the middle on 2nd and 3rd down. So in the 2nd half, the Rams decided to put more men in the box on first down and sit on the underneath routes. The Rams made an adjustment to the Jets game-plan during the 3rd quarter. So the coaching staff, and in particular Chan Gailey would see this and ensure the Jets adjusted back correct? Incorrect.

The Jets continued to run on 1st down and throw short to intermediate routes on 2nd and 3rd down. Gregg Williams the defensive coordinator for the Rams must have thought it was his birthday, the Jets failed to make any in-game adjustments. They didn’t challenge the Rams deep at all in the second half, they continued to run on first down, and never once got the Rams off-balance.

You can’t judge Petty on this performance because Chan Gailey simply didn’t let him play. This wasn’t a good game-plan. This wasn’t even an NFL game-plan, and yet again the Jets showed that they’re a terribly coached team. No in game adjustments.

Forget about winning in New England or anywhere else this year, nobody wants to see us win a 6-3 game that tells us nothing about our future. If the Jets are going to go down, then at least go down swinging.

Even with the ultra conservative game-plan, Petty looked about as comfortable as Fitzpatrick has looked all year, and that says everything you need to know. Many expect Todd to go back to Ryan when the teams line up in New England in two weeks, but I’d argue that Petty is the only play for Bowles. Take the handcuffs off, and lets see what we really have in the former Baylor product.